How sure are we that people can stay healthy on Mars?
Not very. We know that no gravity is lethal in the long term for human beings (for a variety of reasons), but we really have no sense of where the cutoff is—moon gravity is probably too little, but we’ve no clue if Martian gravity might be enough. Human biology is definitely tuned to Earthly norms for obvious reasons, but it might benefit from greater or smaller g-effects; there simply isn’t enough research on the subject, as for obvious reasons it’s inordinately difficult to do the relevant studies.
Huh, I wonder how technically feasible it would be to build a base that’s rotating fast enough so that it feels like earth gravity inside … It could be just one large circular Maglev, which shouldn’t require too much energy for suspension and maintaining a constant speed - though there’s still friction and the fact that it complicates connections to things that are probably better left static.
Is it true or even plausible that travel to Mars can become that cheap? What about the cost of the colony?
How sure are we that people can stay healthy on Mars? I’m more concerned about the low gravity than the radiation.
Not very. We know that no gravity is lethal in the long term for human beings (for a variety of reasons), but we really have no sense of where the cutoff is—moon gravity is probably too little, but we’ve no clue if Martian gravity might be enough. Human biology is definitely tuned to Earthly norms for obvious reasons, but it might benefit from greater or smaller g-effects; there simply isn’t enough research on the subject, as for obvious reasons it’s inordinately difficult to do the relevant studies.
Huh, I wonder how technically feasible it would be to build a base that’s rotating fast enough so that it feels like earth gravity inside … It could be just one large circular Maglev, which shouldn’t require too much energy for suspension and maintaining a constant speed - though there’s still friction and the fact that it complicates connections to things that are probably better left static.