You claimed that people ignore or outright oppose trying to accelerate the rate of technological advancement. Could it be instead that nobody has any idea how to do it?
The fact that all serious criticisms of Mars 1 have to do with whether or not they’ll raise enough money to send a private mission to Mars in 2023 rather than any question than technological feasibility.
I’m under the impression that Mars 1 is a hoax, most likely intended to be the premise of a survivor-like “reality” tv show about the selection of the prospective “colonists”.
If I understand correctly, even a manned flyby mission to Mars is considered technologically difficult, mainly due to ionizing radiation concerns. Setting up a settlement that constantly depended on Earth for supplies (a Martian version of the ISS, essentially) might be technologically possible but only at enormous costs, many orders of magnitudes more what claimed by Mars 1. An independent settlement seems quite beyond the possibilities of present and foreseeable technology.
many orders of magnitudes more what claimed by Mars 1.
And global GDP is about four orders of magnitude greater than NASA’s budget. What requirements do you see as being difficult for an independent settlement? I find both a solar array capable of delivering several terawatts, and a system that, given enough energy, can recycle all the air, food, and water used by a colony, to be well within the “foreseeable technology” category, especially if we were to start pouring in several billion dollars a year in research.
An independent settlement has to locally manufacture all its food, consumable supplies and broken equipment. Since it can’t realistically trade anything with Earth, it must have a self-sustaining closed economy.
Most of stuff we consume in our everyday lives, even food, is the product of complex industrial processes, involving large factories that use lots of energy, many different kinds of resources that come from every corner of the world and lots of labour, exploiting economies of scale. The type of stuff that would be needed on a Martian settlement would be even much more hi-tech. There is no practical way to do all this hi-tech manufacturing on a small scale in a hostile, resource starved environment with current technology.
Keep in mind that even most of the Earth surface is uninhabited. There are no permanent settlements in the middle of the Sahara desert, or at the South Pole, or in the oceans. Anything like that would be way more technologically feasible that a space settlement, it wouldn’t even need to be fully independent, yet we don’t settle there.
EDIT:
if we were to start pouring in several billion dollars a year in research.
For reference, the ISS already costs several billion dollars a year, and it’s far from independent. NASA estimates that a manned mission to Mars would cost about 100 billion dollars.
You claimed that people ignore or outright oppose trying to accelerate the rate of technological advancement. Could it be instead that nobody has any idea how to do it?
Very, very possible.
An independent settlement seems quite beyond the possibilities of present and foreseeable technology.
I’m not saying its easy. I guess I calibrate my concept of foreseeable technology as sleeker, faster mobile devices being trivially predictable, fusion as possible, and general-purpose nanofactories as speculative.
On that scale, I would place permanent off-world settlements as closer than nanofactories, around the same proximity as fusion. Closer, since no new discoveries are required, only an enormous outpouring of resources into existing technologies.
If the permanent Martian settlements are to do their own manufacturing, it seems that they would need both fusion power and nanofactories, or something equivalent. The type of energy sources and resource ores we use on Earth for manufacturing would probably not be available in any sufficient amount.
You claimed that people ignore or outright oppose trying to accelerate the rate of technological advancement. Could it be instead that nobody has any idea how to do it?
I’m under the impression that Mars 1 is a hoax, most likely intended to be the premise of a survivor-like “reality” tv show about the selection of the prospective “colonists”.
If I understand correctly, even a manned flyby mission to Mars is considered technologically difficult, mainly due to ionizing radiation concerns.
Setting up a settlement that constantly depended on Earth for supplies (a Martian version of the ISS, essentially) might be technologically possible but only at enormous costs, many orders of magnitudes more what claimed by Mars 1.
An independent settlement seems quite beyond the possibilities of present and foreseeable technology.
And global GDP is about four orders of magnitude greater than NASA’s budget. What requirements do you see as being difficult for an independent settlement? I find both a solar array capable of delivering several terawatts, and a system that, given enough energy, can recycle all the air, food, and water used by a colony, to be well within the “foreseeable technology” category, especially if we were to start pouring in several billion dollars a year in research.
An independent settlement has to locally manufacture all its food, consumable supplies and broken equipment. Since it can’t realistically trade anything with Earth, it must have a self-sustaining closed economy.
Most of stuff we consume in our everyday lives, even food, is the product of complex industrial processes, involving large factories that use lots of energy, many different kinds of resources that come from every corner of the world and lots of labour, exploiting economies of scale.
The type of stuff that would be needed on a Martian settlement would be even much more hi-tech. There is no practical way to do all this hi-tech manufacturing on a small scale in a hostile, resource starved environment with current technology.
Keep in mind that even most of the Earth surface is uninhabited. There are no permanent settlements in the middle of the Sahara desert, or at the South Pole, or in the oceans. Anything like that would be way more technologically feasible that a space settlement, it wouldn’t even need to be fully independent, yet we don’t settle there.
EDIT:
For reference, the ISS already costs several billion dollars a year, and it’s far from independent. NASA estimates that a manned mission to Mars would cost about 100 billion dollars.
Very, very possible.
I’m not saying its easy. I guess I calibrate my concept of foreseeable technology as sleeker, faster mobile devices being trivially predictable, fusion as possible, and general-purpose nanofactories as speculative.
On that scale, I would place permanent off-world settlements as closer than nanofactories, around the same proximity as fusion. Closer, since no new discoveries are required, only an enormous outpouring of resources into existing technologies.
If the permanent Martian settlements are to do their own manufacturing, it seems that they would need both fusion power and nanofactories, or something equivalent. The type of energy sources and resource ores we use on Earth for manufacturing would probably not be available in any sufficient amount.
You might be right. I hope not, though, because that means it will take even longer to escape from the planetary cycle of overshoot and collapse.
Then again, it’s good to be ready for the worst and be pleasantly surprised if things turn out better than expected.