/Mars/ General

In the last thread we reached a consensus that those who don't want to go to Mars are the worst kind of people and if they got there way we wouldn't have discovered the Americas for 500 more years.

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One of these would work well with Martian dust. Though I've read that you need your panels to track the sun on Mars or the power isn't good enough.

Before going to Mars I'd rather have a lunar colony so we can field test and train. Maybe even have a launch site up there, surely there would be an advantage in doing so.

>>59480276
I don't see the moon as a stepping stone to Mars. Martian atmosphere allows you to do much more than you could at the moon. However solar power would work much better on the moon.

>>59480445
Also I think the moon would be a great platform to test automated base construction techniques.

>>59480445
The moon is hella easy to lift things off of.
Putting any kind of construction onto it/ refueling would be incredibly beneficial to any further launches.

>>59479922
Thats like saying those that don't want to venture into a volcano are the worst kinds of people.

Mars has a weak (<1% Earth) atmosphere and only 38% of the gravity with a weak magnetic field. What protects us from cancer.

While the sabatier reaction can generate methane from the small amounts of carbon dioxide present in the atmosphere/outpost using hydrogen - this hydrogen is sparce.
If you use all the hydrogen on Mars then there isn't a redo and you fuck up better attempts for the future. Meaning to not tamper with whats there you'll need constant hydrogen shipments from Earth, which isn't quite sustainable for what is ultimately achieved.

If you're into exploration, much remains in Earth's caves, oceans, and deserts.

If you're into outposts, the moon is more feasible for manufacturing, closer, better studied, and much of the technology used for a mars outpost would work better as a lunar colony.

If you want fuel, Titan's atmosphere is made of it. Titan shares similar features with the moon and earth, likely has more water than mars and can be reached using the moons oxygen and helium-3.

What makes Mars special in any way from any other body in our solar system for human survival?

>>59480839
Yeah that's why I think the gravity and proximity to earth makes a good case for automated construction. 24/7 solar power is pretty cool!

>>59482021
Mars has ice dude. You make the hydrogen and oxygen from that. Take the CO2 from the air. Then do the sabatier reaction.

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Mars is love. Mars is life.

Musk will save us all.
So say we all!

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>>59479799
Humans will never set foot on Mars.

>>59483526
>Your waifu will never set hips on your dick.

It's only in our nature to want more. What else is left after we conquer this planet. We need to spread everywhere!!! We are actually like the greedy, self-evolving dividing amebae ant colony of aliens that we see in movies that attack our planets and want to devour us as species. We are the devourers. Just accept it... there is no escape from the facts. We can philosophise all we want about our feelings of this and that, but if you look at the actions we preform on a evolutionary scale this is the way to go. there is no context in nature. Just kill or be killed.

There is literally no good reason to colonize Mars.

>but muh manifest destiny! (>>59483671)
>but muh crazy memelord wants to! (>>59483511)
>but muh "no, we can't do science with probes! That's not fun!" (not ITT yet, last one was full of it though)
>*sniff* you spoilsports don't wanna spend decades and trillions of dollars doing it on no other basis than "space is cool!" How dare you! (>>59479922)

>>59483671
>Humans, Virus, Smith, Matrix.

Do you always just regurgitate Hollywood shit?

>>59483801
The moon is a better candidate for robotic exploration and automated base building. Mars is too far away, far less solar power, and you can't easily micromanage the equipment.

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>>59483801
The reason for colonizing Mars is to give humans a back up plan. Yes, this is what the "memelord" says, but it's not wrong. Extinction events could happen, and if we had already colonized another planet, then we have a chance to rebuild Earth in the future. If we only had one planet, then humans could die off.

I think you take life on Earth for granted, mate. Not saying that I don't, because you and I are both shitposting here, but there are reasons bigger than your tens of meme-retorts to spend a huge amount of effort on colonizing mars.

>>59483801
Minerals -> Sheckles
Seems to me there is.

>>59483875
The problem with this is for Mars to be not dependent on Earth would take a 100 years. It would need to support a population of what 50,000 to be a viable human off site backup?

>>59484046
>100 years
so one lifetime to support potentially millions of lifetimes
>need to support 50,000
think bigger niqqa

>>59483868
It's not hard to micromanage equipment from a distance. In any case you only need to worry about base-building if you're going to send people there, which there's no reason to do.

>>59483875
Would you buy a life insurance policy that pays out only if you get struck by a meteor? I wouldn't. Not even for a trivial amount of money, let alone a large amount of money.

Also bear in mind that one of the main extinction scenarios, nuclear war, isn't something a Mars colony can defend you against. Because if you can send a rocket full of people to Mars, you can send a rocket with a nuke on it to mars.

>>59483928
You'll need something worth a million dollars a ton to mine, if you're going to make back your enormous expenses in transporting it back to Earth. Mars doesn't have anything that valuable. It's made of pretty ordinary rock and a lot of rust.

Its always been a dream of mines to visit space, or a foreign celestial body. Hopefully in 20 years or something we can have relatively cheap trips to Mars or the Moon.

space colonization is a meme and a pipe dream

not saying it can't happen, but it would need a world-wide effort, and not just a handful of countries doing it for commercial profits. it's not about keeping the human race from extinction.

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>>59484434
>Would you buy a life insurance policy that pays out only if you get struck by a meteor? I wouldn't.
Sure you wouldn't, you're a smart anon, you know that in the unlikely scenario that a meteor hits Earth, you wouldn't even be able to cash in your policy.

The better question is, how many man-hours of engineering time are we willing to put in to create an insurance policy for 8 billion people against a broad range of threats? You could spend 750,000,000 man-hours of engineering time. That's 10,000 engineers working 10 hour days, 300 days a year, for 25 years. A decent career for 10,000 men spent protecting us against manmade threats and threats from the void of space.

>nuclear war isn't something a Mars colony can defend you against
That's right. But it provides protection against global superviruses, global warming, religious extremism, and plenty of others.

You know, anon, you shouldn't go to the gym. You should just drink soda and eat chips all day, because no healthy diet is going to save you from cancer, or from getting hit by a bus. There are so many bigger threats, those gym-goer, healthy-eaters are really ridiculous.

>>59484471
You don't know what you're talking about, at all. Somehow you know the most viable business model for space colonization is a G20 non-profit? Yeah, let's make a Kyoto Protocol for space colonization, that will work - We just need to wait 20 years for all nations that signed it to drop out because there's no growth and no money in governments to spend.

this board sometimes

>>59479799
>I wanna go edition.
And we all want you to go, ASAP.