This is probably one of the best plain english breakdowns as to why mars is just fundamentally a pipe dream barring some critical breakthrough like fusion energy or room temp semiconductors, and...
This is probably one of the best plain english breakdowns as to why mars is just fundamentally a pipe dream barring some critical breakthrough like fusion energy or room temp semiconductors, and EVEN THEN probably not in the lifetimes of anyone reading this. It's up there with A City on Mars in my eyes (which I greatly appreciate because instead of just thinking "gosh that sounds doable" they actually did the damn research and quickly found out what a mess it is).
It has been very frustrating to watch people who supposedly care about science ignore all the data for the ramblings of politicians and musk because "well it wasn't that hard to go to the moon when we tried". They just don't understand that the Mars mission is literally running into fundamental issues with physics, humanity's first practical foray into the realities of scale and their limitations. Much like how we're not going to alpha centauri, we're not going to mars.
For Mars, this analytic capability will have to move into the spacecraft. In essence, this means building a kind of Space Theranos, an automated black box that can perform biochemical assays in space without requiring repair or calibration. Such an instrument doesn’t exist anywhere, but a Mars mission requires two flavors of it—one that works in zero G, and another for Martian gravity.[12]
This black box belongs to a category of hardware that pops up a lot in Mars plans: technologies that would be multibillion dollar industries if they existed on Earth, but are assumed to be easy enough to invent when the time comes to put them on a Mars-bound spacecraft.
This especially is a lovely example and doesn't get talked about nearly enough, since often its factors of propulsion that captivate the news cycles, but god there's so much of this on the "go to mars" road map.
I also highly recommend reading the footnotes, as they're all relevant and interesting/entertaining information.
It’s a dream of isolationism that’s gotten far out of hand. I think it’s cool to imagine and experiment with such things, but there will need to be lots of experimental prototypes of the Biosphere...
It’s a dream of isolationism that’s gotten far out of hand. I think it’s cool to imagine and experiment with such things, but there will need to be lots of experimental prototypes of the Biosphere 2 variety. SpaceX isn’t doing anything like that; they’re building rockets and imagining someone else will build the rest.
Getting more hardware to Mars and maybe a sample return mission would be pretty cool, though.
I feel it's much more the worship of tech. Lots of people who used tech or worked in tech but didn't really study tech or science waving around "well we got to the moon so fast" and "of course you...
I feel it's much more the worship of tech. Lots of people who used tech or worked in tech but didn't really study tech or science waving around "well we got to the moon so fast" and "of course you know moore's law states..." which just showed their surface level understanding of the material.
Yes, most people (including me) don’t have a deep understanding, but I wouldn’t put the blame on the general public. We’ve been raised on science fiction, and Andrew Weir’s The Martian sounds...
Yes, most people (including me) don’t have a deep understanding, but I wouldn’t put the blame on the general public. We’ve been raised on science fiction, and Andrew Weir’s The Martian sounds pretty plausible if you don’t do more research. (It’s actually one of the more plausible stories, in that it doesn’t fall apart immediately for a general reader.)
Also, NASA is using the goal of putting people on Mars to get the public to support their research.
Oh sure I didn't mind when people thought it was possible. I get that, it's actually a fascinating discussion of the gulf between "go to moon" and "go fucking ANYWHERE else". It's the digging in...
Oh sure I didn't mind when people thought it was possible. I get that, it's actually a fascinating discussion of the gulf between "go to moon" and "go fucking ANYWHERE else".
It's the digging in of the heels when presented evidence of the contrary that I think is a more societal problem. They're "smart" so they can't be wrong. This gets back to rationalists, doctors, lawyers, other scientists, and plenty of other educated careers seeming to focus more on "pass the test and say what i want to hear" than "learn how to do proper research and question your position and justify it".
My knowledge comes from a family member who worked in the field, who then gives me a litmus test of "is this fucking insane" followed by just basic research, but because of that I've gotten met with a lot of "well what the fuck do you know" and "Musk is clearly smarter than you" and so on.
Again I'm clearly carrying a grudge for LOTS of people who straight up worshiped musk not 10 years ago who now suddenly get what I've been saying forever. It's just frustrating that it's in fields that should know better, but in reality we've honestly selected for those who wouldn't in many cases.
I think there’s like at least two camps of people who support long-term settlement of Mars. The first is the popsci(fi) crowd who’s convinced that if we really tried, we could have a city there in...
I think there’s like at least two camps of people who support long-term settlement of Mars.
The first is the popsci(fi) crowd who’s convinced that if we really tried, we could have a city there in 20 years. The second has a better grounding of science/physics and even if they don’t understand all of the intracacies of such an undertaking know that it will be at fastest a project that spans multiple generations.
I’d like to think I’m in the latter. It’s something I would love to see happen in my lifetime, but know that’s probably not going to happen and would be happy to settle for seeing meaningful progress and momentum in that direction.
As for why I want Mars to be settled, well… it has less to do with Mars itself (though it has its virtues) and more with where humanity is headed. The way I see it, if we manage to establish long term settlements on Mars, then living just about anywhere in not just the Solar System but anywhere within the accessible universe isn’t that much bigger of a leap. If humans make it over that hurdle, its future has an unbelievably vast branching tree of possibilities (including humanity’s descendents outliving its origin solar system) that just isn’t there if we don’t. If it turns out that we never figure out how to live beyond Earth’s gravity well, then at best our future ends with Earth’s and at worst it ends in the coming decades or centuries via extinction by our own hand.
The latter scenario is extremely depressing to me. Maybe it’s weird to care about what people living many hundreds of years after I’m dead might experience, but on some level I do. Obviously the here and now is the #1 priority, but the idea the human spark will persevere even if some set of idiots here on Earth sets off our own demise would put a bit of extra pep in my step.
Well, the good news about the sun going nova is that we have a lot of time to deal with it, and it only takes one well-funded group within the next few million years, for some humans to escape the...
Well, the good news about the sun going nova is that we have a lot of time to deal with it, and it only takes one well-funded group within the next few million years, for some humans to escape the solar system. Imagine how easy global warming would be if we only needed one country to hit net-zero.
That’s true, but at the same time there’s the possibility some chain of events will occur that causes us to lose our ability to get off of Earth’s surface and never get it back. Knowledge is lost...
That’s true, but at the same time there’s the possibility some chain of events will occur that causes us to lose our ability to get off of Earth’s surface and never get it back. Knowledge is lost all the time, even that concerning great feats.
That’s also a source of urgency in my mind. We should be working on this while we know we have the capability, because it’s not a given that we’ll have it forever.
Hey remember how Mars One was going to do it and be funded by sponsorships and a reality TV show? I recall getting mocked by friends for saying it’d never happen (for some of the reasons in this...
Hey remember how Mars One was going to do it and be funded by sponsorships and a reality TV show?
I recall getting mocked by friends for saying it’d never happen (for some of the reasons in this article amongst other issues).
A lot of the plans for mars missions reminds me of when I was doing PE in my final year of high school.
As a project we had to come up with a goal and a training regime, then do baseline exercises/measurements and then train and compare against the baseline.
Most chose fairly straightforward things. Like a 3 minute plank or whatever so they could swim better or do better on a beep test to get into police training.
I realised the goal was totally arbitrary, so long as after the 8 weeks you did better on the exercises than at the start.
This is probably one of the best plain english breakdowns as to why mars is just fundamentally a pipe dream barring some critical breakthrough like fusion energy or room temp semiconductors, and EVEN THEN probably not in the lifetimes of anyone reading this. It's up there with A City on Mars in my eyes (which I greatly appreciate because instead of just thinking "gosh that sounds doable" they actually did the damn research and quickly found out what a mess it is).
It has been very frustrating to watch people who supposedly care about science ignore all the data for the ramblings of politicians and musk because "well it wasn't that hard to go to the moon when we tried". They just don't understand that the Mars mission is literally running into fundamental issues with physics, humanity's first practical foray into the realities of scale and their limitations. Much like how we're not going to alpha centauri, we're not going to mars.
This especially is a lovely example and doesn't get talked about nearly enough, since often its factors of propulsion that captivate the news cycles, but god there's so much of this on the "go to mars" road map.
I also highly recommend reading the footnotes, as they're all relevant and interesting/entertaining information.
It’s a dream of isolationism that’s gotten far out of hand. I think it’s cool to imagine and experiment with such things, but there will need to be lots of experimental prototypes of the Biosphere 2 variety. SpaceX isn’t doing anything like that; they’re building rockets and imagining someone else will build the rest.
Getting more hardware to Mars and maybe a sample return mission would be pretty cool, though.
I feel it's much more the worship of tech. Lots of people who used tech or worked in tech but didn't really study tech or science waving around "well we got to the moon so fast" and "of course you know moore's law states..." which just showed their surface level understanding of the material.
Yes, most people (including me) don’t have a deep understanding, but I wouldn’t put the blame on the general public. We’ve been raised on science fiction, and Andrew Weir’s The Martian sounds pretty plausible if you don’t do more research. (It’s actually one of the more plausible stories, in that it doesn’t fall apart immediately for a general reader.)
Also, NASA is using the goal of putting people on Mars to get the public to support their research.
Oh sure I didn't mind when people thought it was possible. I get that, it's actually a fascinating discussion of the gulf between "go to moon" and "go fucking ANYWHERE else".
It's the digging in of the heels when presented evidence of the contrary that I think is a more societal problem. They're "smart" so they can't be wrong. This gets back to rationalists, doctors, lawyers, other scientists, and plenty of other educated careers seeming to focus more on "pass the test and say what i want to hear" than "learn how to do proper research and question your position and justify it".
My knowledge comes from a family member who worked in the field, who then gives me a litmus test of "is this fucking insane" followed by just basic research, but because of that I've gotten met with a lot of "well what the fuck do you know" and "Musk is clearly smarter than you" and so on.
Again I'm clearly carrying a grudge for LOTS of people who straight up worshiped musk not 10 years ago who now suddenly get what I've been saying forever. It's just frustrating that it's in fields that should know better, but in reality we've honestly selected for those who wouldn't in many cases.
Can we just go with Elon Musk's original plan and just get him to Mars soon?
I think there’s like at least two camps of people who support long-term settlement of Mars.
The first is the popsci(fi) crowd who’s convinced that if we really tried, we could have a city there in 20 years. The second has a better grounding of science/physics and even if they don’t understand all of the intracacies of such an undertaking know that it will be at fastest a project that spans multiple generations.
I’d like to think I’m in the latter. It’s something I would love to see happen in my lifetime, but know that’s probably not going to happen and would be happy to settle for seeing meaningful progress and momentum in that direction.
As for why I want Mars to be settled, well… it has less to do with Mars itself (though it has its virtues) and more with where humanity is headed. The way I see it, if we manage to establish long term settlements on Mars, then living just about anywhere in not just the Solar System but anywhere within the accessible universe isn’t that much bigger of a leap. If humans make it over that hurdle, its future has an unbelievably vast branching tree of possibilities (including humanity’s descendents outliving its origin solar system) that just isn’t there if we don’t. If it turns out that we never figure out how to live beyond Earth’s gravity well, then at best our future ends with Earth’s and at worst it ends in the coming decades or centuries via extinction by our own hand.
The latter scenario is extremely depressing to me. Maybe it’s weird to care about what people living many hundreds of years after I’m dead might experience, but on some level I do. Obviously the here and now is the #1 priority, but the idea the human spark will persevere even if some set of idiots here on Earth sets off our own demise would put a bit of extra pep in my step.
Well, the good news about the sun going nova is that we have a lot of time to deal with it, and it only takes one well-funded group within the next few million years, for some humans to escape the solar system. Imagine how easy global warming would be if we only needed one country to hit net-zero.
That’s true, but at the same time there’s the possibility some chain of events will occur that causes us to lose our ability to get off of Earth’s surface and never get it back. Knowledge is lost all the time, even that concerning great feats.
That’s also a source of urgency in my mind. We should be working on this while we know we have the capability, because it’s not a given that we’ll have it forever.
Hey remember how Mars One was going to do it and be funded by sponsorships and a reality TV show?
I recall getting mocked by friends for saying it’d never happen (for some of the reasons in this article amongst other issues).
A lot of the plans for mars missions reminds me of when I was doing PE in my final year of high school.
As a project we had to come up with a goal and a training regime, then do baseline exercises/measurements and then train and compare against the baseline.
Most chose fairly straightforward things. Like a 3 minute plank or whatever so they could swim better or do better on a beep test to get into police training.
I realised the goal was totally arbitrary, so long as after the 8 weeks you did better on the exercises than at the start.
So I said my goal was to kayak the pacific rim…
The achievability was about the same.