Are we on Mars yet? This is taking literally forever.

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>>7582563
Yes it is. Obviously. You obviously have not researched how we would have to do it.

>>7582565
>You obviously have not researched how we would have to do it.
Moderately more difficult than the moon landings, mostly just keeping astronauts alive for longer. We could have done it in the 70s.

>...but the life support!
60s tech is fine, with a few tons of supplies per crewman. In fact, with once-through life support, you can recycle the waste into return propellant.

>...but the radiation!
The cosmic rays would just cause moderately increased risk of cancer over the lifetime of the astronauts. The solar protons mostly come from one direction and are pretty easy to shield against using the tons of supplies you need anyway.

>...but the need for artificial gravity!
It's been clear that that wasn't necessary since Mir.

>...but the crew needs a big, spacious habitat and lots of creature comforts, or they'll go crazy!
You can pick some tough astronauts. They'd be on the greatest and most glorious adventure in human history. People put up with far worse for much longer, without going crazy, without being hand-picked, and without having a hero's welcome waiting at home.

>...but the need for exotic propulsion!
We don't have such a need. The delta-V requirements of going to Mars and coming back can be met with conventional propulsion: a few Saturn V class launches, less than were used for the Apollo program.

>...but NASA would need money like during the Apollo program!
For the Apollo program, they had to INVENT most of modern rocketry and manned spaceflight. NASA has had enough money to put men on Mars in every decade from the 70s on, but that money has consistently been spent on things like maintaining a large, inefficient permanent staff and corporate welfare for well-connected contractors.

We already been since the 80's. Where do you think that mushroom cloud came from?

>>7582563
>This is taking literally forever.
Lrn2literally
then Lrn2forever

>>7582563
Elon Musk had a bet with someone that they could get the first people on Mars by 2025 or something. Calculating in likely delays, I would say 2030 or 2035 is more reasonable. But who knows, maybe NASA or China or someone else will get there before then. I do think though that someone will get there by 2040, which is 25 years from now.

>>7582563
I'm 99% sure we'll have people there by the end of the century.

>>7582667
>Inb4 Musk puts someone's cremated ashes on a Mars probe just to win the bet

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>>7582734
I just spit my coffee

>>7582880
Whether the man had to be alive or not wasn't specified in the bet.

>>7582665
I second this motion.

>>7582613
Seems like the toughest part will be landing and getting off the surface. I mean for Apollo there was no atmosphere to worry about, much lower gravity and they were close enough to Earth to be in constant contact.

Doing all that shit at Mars (as well as orbital rendezvous) while 20 light minutes away is a pretty big challenge

What would sending a man on mars do at this point though? There are better ways to spend NASA's funding.

>>7582928
>for Apollo there was no atmosphere to worry about, much lower gravity
That atmosphere is actually a big help, because it means you can aerobrake. Thanks to aerobraking, the delta-V to land on Mars and take off again to low Mars orbit is only a little less than the delta-V to land on the moon and take off again to low lunar orbit.

It takes a delta-V of 1.87 km/s to go between LLO and the moon surface, so a land-and-return is 3.74 km/s. Mars surface to LMO takes 4.1 km/s. LMO to surface is much harder to quantify, but Dragon V2 is supposed to be able to land on Mars with well under 1 km/s of delta-V.

That atmosphere is also thin enough for wind effects and overall ascent aerodynamics to be negligible (don't believe The Martian and its nonsense with stuff being blown over on the surface and flapping, torn canvas on the way up).

4.1 km/s only takes about a 75% propellant fraction. Furthermore, in the low gravity of Mars, your thrust requirements are modest. Orbital launch vehicles (from Earth) typically have upper stages with a considerably lower empty mass than the size of the payload, and they supply more delta-V at higher initial thrust-to-mass requirements.

I think it's entirely reasonable to just launch the astronauts in their EVA suits, in an unpressurized, minimal rendezvous spacecraft. You only really need about a ton of fuelled, loaded vehicle per astronaut, and most of that is going to be the fuel, the astronauts, and their suits. As previously mentioned, the fuel can be made from the waste of once-through life support, with backup plans of ISRU and resupply (for any manned Mars mission, staying put and waiting to be resupplied should be a planned backup option).

>Doing all that shit at Mars (as well as orbital rendezvous) while 20 light minutes away is a pretty big challenge
There's not much for ground control to do. If the computers aren't doing their job, you're pretty much fucked.

wouldnt it be hot in mars?

3/10 would not move there

>>7582667
Hopefully Musk was smart and bet against him landing a man on Mars by 2025 so that he puts himself in a win-win situation.

>>7582563
I just want to see Mars One send a group of people to their deaths on extraterrestrial soil

>>7582563
>Are we on Mars yet?`
Nooooooo
>This is taking literally forever.
Lean back. It will even take longer.

Get it: We will never colonize Mars.

N E V E R !

>>7584093
>a planet farther than earth from the sun is always hotter than earth

>>7583326
A man on mars can do more science in a day then any robot could in a year.

At best we can set up some neato research stations on Mars (like we have on Antarctica), but why would anyone want to try and colonize it?

>>7584831
Because humanity was born on Earth but meant for the stars. But really it's to reduce the chance of the extinction our entire species from climate change related causes and asteroids. And we gotta do it eventually anyway, the sun ain't gonna live forever.

>>7584836
>the sun ain't gonna live forever
>let's colonize another planet in our solar system though

>>7584838
It's a "small" but important step.

We still can't get people to the nearest star, but eventually we will do that.

We're not talking about 10 years of new technology, or 50 or 100 years. We're talking about millenniums of advancement.

Could the ancient greeks/romans/etc get somebody on the moon? No! But a few thousand years later, we can.

For you, me, and anybody alive today, it won't really matter. But for mankind as a species, it will.

What exactly does Mars provide that we so desperately need and motivates the efforts for Mars exploration?

I mean, don't even think it's viable to live there.

>>7584967
>What exactly does Mars provide that we so desperately need and motivates the efforts for Mars exploration?

Science, resources, national/global unity, insurance in case we blow Earth up.

And science has subgenres- searching for life, inventing new technology, human biology in 0 < X < 1g gravity, expanding our knowledge of planetary formation, it goes on and on.

As an earlier anon said, a human can do more science on Mars in a day than a robot does in a year.

>I mean, don't even think it's viable to live there.
You clearly have no idea what you're talking about, then. A permanent human settlement is 100% possible with existing, current technology. Mars has every basic resource Earth has, some of it is just a little inconvenient to get to.

>>7584575
That will never happen.

Mars One will probably never launch.

If they do, it will be because they accidentally stumble into success by pretending to be real, so hard, for so long, that they eventually wind up hiring a staff of real scientists and real engineers who fell for the ruse but nonetheless know what they're doing.

>>7584700
Humans are born to colonize. It's etched into our very DNA by millions of years of evolution, and echoes throughout our entire history.

>>7584997
>You clearly have no idea what you're talking about, then
Tiny research-oriented outposts where the people suffer from muscle enthropy and cannot step outside without oxygen tanks and protective suits is not what I consider 'living on Mars'. It's several magnitudes more limited and vulnerable than a base in the Antarctic except the supply distance is 54 million fucking kilometers.

You can keep building bigger outposts I guess but they're still glorified nuclear shelters located on a planet more inhospitable than any desert on Earth.

>>7585032
So your definition of "living on Mars" is strictly limited to a breathable atmosphere.

That's not a semantical argument I give enough of a shit to have with you.

>>7585032
>muscle enthropy
At least use real words. Anyway, we don't know that people would suffer health problems from living on Mars. It does have ~40% Earth gravity. It's not going to be like living on the ISS.

>a planet more inhospitable than any desert on Earth.
Not so. For instance, there are places on Mars where you can dig up plentiful water ice, but there are deserts where water is simply not available locally. No matter what technology you take there, or how many people, you wouldn't be able to be locally self-sufficient.

Mars is a whole planet, with all the necessary elements for life and industry. Colonizing another planet, even a relatively inhospitable one, has an entirely different set of benefits from trying to expand into the shittiest parts of a planet that you're already on.

>>7584997
>Humans are born to colonize. It's etched into our very DNA by millions of years of evolution, and echoes throughout our entire history
hollow rhetoric

bill nye told me we can't leave the earth and i trust him more than u fagets :)

>>7585032
You really just doubled down on not knowing what you're talking about.

>>7584836
>the extinction our entire species from climate change
Are you retarded?
Humans survived an ice age, I think they can survive a few degrees increase in average temperature.

>Nasa Budget
$4 Billion
>US military Budget
$610 Billion

Going to Mars is physically possible, and not that hard, by which I mean, it is hard, but it's just a case of time and money, money being the lacking part, time is just to get the smart guys to figure out the best ways of doing it. It's totally possible. It's possible to put a man on Pluto if we wanted.

>>7585186
Except there was/is a program that was able to get people to Mars within NASAs budget. It was possible in the 90's. Still possible today.

It got cancelled because it didn't use the ISS, and people who worked on those parts of NASA voted no to the project, fearing their projects be cut off, or grants lost.

Instead they want a mission that uses the ISS and everyone's pet project, but it would've costed 8 times as much, almost as much as WW2. Congress didn't like that and shut it down.

Getting to Mars is easy, and cheap. Getting people to abandon their pride is neither.

>>7585219
Yes exactly, the issue is human greed and pride. Everyone wants to go to mars but they can't agree on how.

There's not much humans can't do right now, we can invent almost anything and figure out almost anything, going to another planet is not hard its just expensive

>>7584831
Because it is romantic. And in these days people seem to forget what romantism is.

>>7583326
all the science we have done on mars for the past 50 years could have been done by one astronaut in less than one day.

>>7584836
because it's there. the only reason there are no settlements on Antarctica is because it's illegal and you would be kick off the continent if you tried.

>>7585186
>>Nasa Budget
>$4 Billion
Last I checked, it was more like $18 billion.

Anyway, a billion dollars is a huge amount of money. You can get like a dozen Falcon Heavy launches with that, and there's really no reason that such a cost-effective launch system couldn't have been done decades earlier. High launch costs have just been profiteering and waste.

>>7585290
>Kicked off of Antartica
Lol who is going to do that the penguin police? You can go to Antarctica and build a house there right now, no-one will stop you.

>>7585326
>Lol who is going to do that the penguin police?
Antarctica has been split up into spheres of influence of different countries, under an agreement which restricts the use of land there to scientific research purposes.

>You can go to Antarctica and build a house there right now, no-one will stop you.
Not true.

Established countries have laid claim to pretty much every square inch of Earth in one way or another. They use their military forces routinely in disputes over areas they're making no use of, and have no prospects to make use of.

They've even got treaties which basically forbid anyone from claiming territory in space. If you want to build a colony, you'd better be ready to either make nice with the established powers or fight them off. If you think you can ignore it, you'd better be aware that missiles to smash up all your shit will be a lot easier to send to Mars than all the shit you need to live there.

Legally, we're all fenced in.

>>7585159
Until 1/3 the Earth's population finds itself homeless, underwater, starving, or all three; and then realizes they have more bullets than food and shortly thereafter we kick off a nuclear apocalypse.

I don't think you fully comprehend how devastating a few degrees increase will be to countries that aren't America. There's a reason it's one of the biggest causes of conflict in the Pentagon's roadmap for the 21st century.

What if we just made the MSA (Mars Space Agency), gave them a billion dollars, and sent them to work?

>>7585402
>1/3 the Earth's population finds itself homeless, underwater, starving, or all three
Holy fuck is this stupid. Try to grasp the difference in magnitude between "some millions" and "1/3 of Earth's population".

Anyway, it's only very poor people who might find themselves in desperate situations, and they pose no threat to significantly less poor people.

Plus there's this ongoing massive explosion of wealth and comfort due to continuing technological development and accumulation of capital. Just because it's getting shared to places like China and India, while mediocre middle-class first-worlders are only seeing better gadgets and healthcare, doesn't mean the world isn't getting rapidly better and more capable of dealing with inconveniences that might be posed by things like climate change.

>>7585408
>Holy fuck is this stupid. Try to grasp the difference in magnitude between "some millions" and "1/3 of Earth's population".

Do you know how many people live in lowlying Asia?

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>>7585326
see
>>7585348

And even if you try to settle in the par that is not claimed by any one at the moment, they will still kick you out in the name of preserving the pristine environment of Antarctica.

>>7584831
Why not?

>>7585475
>Argentina laying claim to more of the UK's territory.

Fucking Argies, when will they learn?

>>7585348
>>7585475

>Any country is going to fly all the way to Antartica to conduct a bombing campaign on some loner guy's shack in the middle of Antartica
If you're doing some ISIS tier land grabbing shit then yeah some SEALS would be dispatched but one guy? He would probably get a medal for managing to stay alive all by himself on Antartica.

>>7585348
About Mars, if some hippies stole a Falcon Heavy and managed to fly it all the way to Mars and set up an independent colony no-one is going to bomb them. It's just not worth it, they are way too far away to be a threat to national security. They would just be left there and only if they ever came back would legal action take place. Firing a missile at Mars would cost a couple billion and take many years of development and travel time. The rebel colonists could be long dead by the time it arrives.

>>7584828
True but since it costs a thousand times more, better send a thousand robots instead.

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>>7585475

/int/ here to culturally enrich /sci/ just a bit.

The "unclaimed" section of Antarctica is also known as Marie Byrd Land, known to be exceptionally difficult to access, even by Antarctic Standards. However, USA and Russia both signed the treaty already mentioned, and they have IIRC an option to make a formal claim under the treaty. The big powers who have interest in such a claim are USA, Russia, and China, but since they all have bases already, they just haven't gotten around to it.

The only other real piece of land to which no sort of de jure or de facto claim is made is Bir Tawil, an uninhabited spot in between Egypt or Sudan. Neither side bothers to claim it since they both recognize a different treaty for land just east that they both prefer (and therefore claim), with the legal effect that Bir Tawil is terra nullis.
There are also little spits of land in between I think Slovenia, Serbia and Croatia which are legally ambiguous, and some western fedora'd microstate autists went in there trying to do their gay microstate thing, and the local powers got together or something and said, uh, No You Fucking Don't. Just because we don't really claim these bits doesn't mean that we will tolerate your presence there. And so they were evicted from one, but moved to another. Or something.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terra_nullius#Land_portions_along_the_Danube_river

If you want to hold clay, you must be able to repel any who would deny you your clay.

As for /sci/ stuff, I come up with about 60 earth landforms which only have a scientific or military presence, which tend either to be Antarctica or remote ocean islands. Cocos Island off Costa Rica of Jurassic Park for example, is staffed by park rangers who preserve and manage the island, and do not so much as allow tourists to stay overnight. There are also various Important Bird Areas among the "1's" in my chart. I need to add Marie Byrd and Bir Tawil to this thing...

>>7585402
Even if 99% of humans die, there would still be 80 million humans...

Next year, InSight will start to give us a better idea of how frequently meteorites impact the surface of Mars, which is a pretty significant thing to know for future colonization missions.

But what can we do to protect our colonists, if this rate ends up being high enough to be concerned about (which it probably will)?

Burrow into a mountain?

>>7585746
underground habitats are a really good idea, provides safety from any extreme weather, meteors, and radiation as well as temperature regulation and stability since as Far as we can tell the crust is not tectonically active

>>7585803
I've actually read before about the pros/cons of actually piling on enough regolith to counter the PSI of the air inside the colony, to relieve stress from the structure itself, thereby allowing much cheaper/lighter materials in its construction.

>Far as we can tell the crust is not tectonically active

InSight will pretty much confirm this one way or the other, so knowledge won't be an issue there.

>>7585475

>Argentina literally inside UK-claimed soil

Goddammit Argentina.

>>7585835
>UK land grabbing other nations' turf as usual.
wew lad

>>7582563
Anon, I can't wait literally forever, can you?

Some site detailing the science behind making a Mars research station:
http://marsbase.org/contents

>>7584831
Because it's cool, what other reason do you need?

>>7584836
>>7585402
>climate change
This board is about science.

>>7584093
The highest recorded surface temperature on Mars is 70 degrees Fahrenheit. The highest recorded atmospheric temperature is -20 degrees Fahrenheit.

>>7585634
Liberland. I've been there. Or rather the Croatian police stopped me in my tracks right at the gates of it.