Sending humans to Mars is a bad idea

[el_draco (Rom)]

Originally Posted by Kunama

We only got to the moon because of the weapons research.....

The Yanks did the moon because they were terrified the Soviets would continue to maintain their lead in space. Sputnik put the fear of Gawd up em and they were concerned about Soviet militarisation up there, (nukes falling from the sky syndrome). It was national prestige and fear more than anything that initially drove them but what they found up there really changed a lot of people. "Earth rise" is widely recognised as the most poignant image in history for good reason.

An interesting aspect of this discussion is that space caused the first thawing of relations between East and West and that lead to a lot of things including the SALT treaties. Even now, with the crap going down, ISS does not seem to be affected.

Perhaps one of the great benefits of space research, and travel, is the international cooperation that results, and perhaps that's what we need. In the 70's in particular, there was a lot of cooperation. Perhaps its because space pushes us to our limits, economically, biologically, Scientifically and technologically; maybe that's what civilisation is lacking now; an international vision of something bigger than us all.

[Neil]

I think every ones overlooking one undeniable point. The Earth will not be habitable in approx a billion years or so, for that matter Mars will also go down that path at a later date. We need to go to Mars and and learn how to survive now, so we can take that next step, leave the Solar System and colonise using the knowledge and experience we would have gained making those first steps to Mars and beyond. Clear skies .

[leon]

Neil, earth will not be habitable in 100 years let alone a billion, we will wipe ourselves out very soon.

Leon

[skysurfer]

Originally Posted by astroron

Spending Billions of Dollars to go to Mars and in the future Billions/trillions more to terraform it so humans can live on it is the height of stupidity
Spending the same amount of money on repairing a perfectly good planet that we are stuffing up at a great rate of knots,would be a much saner use of said money.
Cheers

I agree completely.
We are currently deterraforming Earth by firing coal, dumping plastic into the oceans, logging virgin forests and wasting energy and resources. And the new trumperialistic America will exacerbate this problem.

Stop this first !

[astroron (Ron)]

I hate it when we have people like Hawking,Musk etc saying we must go into space to save the human race, the race that is the most destructive creature that has ever inhabited this planet.
The race that has contributed nearly as much damage to this world and it's other inhabitants as the Asteroid/comet/meteorite that destroyed the dinosaurs.
The attitude we've stuffed up this planet, lets chuff off to Mars and other planets and stuff them up as well.
I don't think humans have any right to not go extinct.
Cheers

[sharpiel]

Originally Posted by Kunama

lets make a concerted effort to clean up our act on this globe, with the way we treat this place I doubt we deserve the right or chance to colonise (and f-up) another place in the heavens.....

My thoughts entirely

[sharpiel]

Best way to get to Mars quickly would be to convince old Chinese men that there's a new aphrodisiac to be found there...then watch the rush.

[AussieTrooper (Ben)]

Please don't do that. 'Aphrodisiacs' have already caused enough animals to go extinct on earth. We don't need the first life found on mars to be the first one do go extinct.

[pmrid (Peter)]

Originally Posted by AussieTrooper

Please don't do that. 'Aphrodisiacs' have already caused enough animals to go extinct on earth. We don't need the first life found on mars to be the first one do go extinct.

I hate being the bearer of bad news, but brace yourself - it already has!
Peter

[ZeroID (Brent)]

Originally Posted by Neil

I think every ones overlooking one undeniable point. The Earth will not be habitable in approx a billion years or so, for that matter Mars will also go down that path at a later date. We need to go to Mars and and learn how to survive now, so we can take that next step, leave the Solar System and colonise using the knowledge and experience we would have gained making those first steps to Mars and beyond. Clear skies .

MMMmmmmm a bit late there, Mars has already gone down that path.
As a local option it's just a training ground to surviving in hell... When the sun goes Super Nova Mars will be fried as much as Earth regardless. It's already toasted anyway.

[casstony]

Moon base, Mars colony, intergenerational ship to another star; it's all good, especially if the effort can be used to unite nations on Earth.

[el_draco (Rom)]

Originally Posted by ZeroID

MMMmmmmm a bit late there, Mars has already gone down that path.
As a local option it's just a training ground to surviving in hell... When the sun goes Super Nova Mars will be fried as much as Earth regardless. It's already toasted anyway.

... except the sun wont go super nova; a bit small. Yeah, yeah. same net effect.

[Neil]

If we haven't found a habitable planet which we can successfully live on without f...ing it by the time our Sun makes it very necessary, then we may as well lay down and become toast or something else just as crisp.
I agree we need to change and take steps to save this planet, but at the same time do we become complacent and not continue with our quest to go out their and test the water, or is that too much to do?
Some one once said " nothing ventured, nothing gained" I say if you sit and gaze at the wonders of our green and diverse beautiful planet you will also see it wilt and burn! Clear skies.

[AussieTrooper (Ben)]

Originally Posted by casstony

Moon base, Mars colony, intergenerational ship to another star; it's all good, especially if the effort can be used to unite nations on Earth.

The last space race seemed to co-inside rather too nicely with the development of ICBMs, spy satellites etc.
I doubt that anything short of another cold war is going to get us to Mars.

[UniPol]

Anyone who read Ray Bradbury's "Martian Chronicles" or watched the 1980 television series would soon tell you that there is no point in colonizing Mars. There is no telling if Martians still exist who were portrayed as ghosts or shadows of the past. Is it worth the risk?

[raymo]

I think that humankind will explore, and eventually colonise, our solar
system and beyond, simply because it is there to be done. The fact that
these exploits will be very dangerous will be irrelevant; many past
explorers set out not knowing if they would return. It won't be hard to
find people to go on those journeys. There is IMHO a fair chance that an
exploration race will begin fairly soon between at least China and the U.S.
I think that the U.S.must be horrified at the prospect of China leading the way into space, and all that that might imply. China has announced that they are planning jaunts to the far side of the moon within two years, so who
knows, maybe they are planning another Spratly islands event there further
into the future.[ not that ownership of the far side of the moon is disputed,
of course].
raymo

[AussieTrooper (Ben)]

Originally Posted by UniPol

Anyone who read Ray Bradbury's "Martian Chronicles" or watched the 1980 television series would soon tell you that there is no point in colonizing Mars. There is no telling if Martians still exist who were portrayed as ghosts or shadows of the past. Is it worth the risk?

Is the TV series available online?

[AussieTrooper (Ben)]

Originally Posted by raymo

I think that humankind will explore, and eventually colonise, our solar
system and beyond, simply because it is there to be done. The fact that
these exploits will be very dangerous will be irrelevant; many past
explorers set out not knowing if they would return. It won't be hard to
find people to go on those journeys. There is IMHO a fair chance that an
exploration race will begin fairly soon between at least China and the U.S.
I think that the U.S.must be horrified at the prospect of China leading the way into space, and all that that might imply. China has announced that they are planning jaunts to the far side of the moon within two years, so who
knows, maybe they are planning another Spratly islands event there further
into the future.[ not that ownership of the far side of the moon is disputed,
of course].
raymo

Yep. That's likely. I don't think the Chinese are going to subscribe to the 'Nobody owns space' ethos, once they are strong enough to say 'this is ours and we will mine it' without being seriously challenged by anyone.
I suspect they are going to do this in Antarctica. They do not recognise anyone else's claim (though the Antarctic treaty somewhat nullifies claims anyway) and have built a base on pretty much every slice of the continent.
If nobody is stepping in to stop them in the Spratleys, who is going to stop them in Antarctica/space?

[dpastern (Dave Pastern)]

Originally Posted by astroron

Spending Billions of Dollars to go to Mars and in the future Billions/trillions more to terraform it so humans can live on it is the height of stupidity
Spending the same amount of money on repairing a perfectly good planet that we are stuffing up at a great rate of knots,would be a much saner use of said money.
Cheers

but the problems are twofold Ron:

1) we refuse to globally acknowledge that we're stuffing this planet up

2) the rate of issues developing with our planet's environment and ecology are rapidly developing, faster than what I believe we can fix said issues.

Humanity revolves around money, that is considered more important than anything else.

I'm going to have a good laugh from my grave One day when all the money in the world can't make the Earth habitable again. And it will happen. I give mankind less than 200 hundred years to turn things around, probably not even that.

As to Mars - firstly, despite NASA's briefing in 2015, there is no absolute proof of liquid water on Mars. Until they get an actual physical sample analysed, I'm going to remain very sceptical.

It probably should be possible to extract the necessary components for a breathable habit on Mars, and also liquid water, but it will cost an awful lot of money. Current governments are shying away from spending money on the sciences, they'd rather spend money on warfare. I mean, Howard shied away from paying around AUD $750 million to join the ESO, but we can spend money on dud F35 IIs and dud submarines...and a helluva lot more money at that!

Dave

[dpastern (Dave Pastern)]

Originally Posted by billdan

@Kunama -- We only got to the moon because of the weapons research.....

That is correct, Hitler and his gang of thugs put the first rocket into space when developing the V2 rocket to bomb London. However the launch sites were quickly overrun by the allies after D-Day.

After the war the German rocket scientists never faced any criminal law courts as the Americans quickly whisked them away to the USA to help their military and create NASA.

yup. 100% correct. NASA isn't an American brainchild, it's a German One. The Germans were way ahead of any other country when it came to lots of things:

1) heinkel he219 uhu - first plane to have ejection seats and advanced night time radar detection, certainly far ahead of anything the allies had at the time.

2) horton ho229 would have required a pressurised flight suit for operation - a first at the time.

3) horton ho229's stealth abilities - the US quietly took One back to US shores for investigation and secretly conducted test flights with it. You only have to compare the B2 stealth bomber to it to see where the Americans got the idea from...

4) directional targeting via radar (the Bismarck was way ahead of the field back in 1941 when it was really first used in warfare).

Germany was way ahead in biological warfare studies, and also nuclear studies too. The US cleaned up on that as well post war.

Another Six months and the Horton ho229 would have entered full production (given enough supplies) and would have caused serious issues for the British chain radar system - very fast object moving at a very low altitude, with radar defeating technology. They'd have been on top of the British before they knew what hit them!

Luft '46 tech was pretty radical.

Dave