Do you think Humans will colonise The Moon and Mars someday?

[lokisnow]

On 1/3/2018 at 9:10 AM, Feologild said:

And do you think humans will ever actually walk on Mars ?
I do think that humans one day will colonise the moon but i don`t think it will happen in my life time. I don`t think humans will actually walk on Mars.

Ten years ago, I’d have said no, because the cost per kilogram of moving materiel into orbit is simply too high to ever be overcome.

however, since inequality has increased so much, with so many tech billionaires enamored of space, I can easily see billionaires funding the efforts because the inequality makes it possible and they’ve got nothing better to do.

[felice]

7 hours ago, The Anti-Targ said:

Better, I think, to figure out interstellar travel and find some planet with Earth-like conditions that's in a kind of precambrian state and colonise that. We might be lucky enough to have such a planet right in our galactic back yard, and even with near term spaceflight tech it could be reached within a single human lifetime.

That seems like a reasonable long-term goal, but exploring other "nearby" solar systems is going to take a loooong time, and sending a colony to one is likely to take a generation ship. Self-sufficient in-system colonies would be vital practice for an interstellar ship, if nothing else.

7 hours ago, The Anti-Targ said:

I reckon the solution is in manipulating space-time (controlling the matrix) rather than just trying to fly really fast in a straight line.

It might be, but I don't think we should count on that ever being possible.

[Jo498]

It is not a meaningless goal. I understand the attraction (although I don't really share the sentiment). I think it is a seductive but illusionary goal (think Tower of Babylon or perpetual motion machine). FWIW I don't deny that space exploration could be fun and even useful for science although for most of this unmanned probes would be preferable. (I am not sure but I think I once read an essay that demonstrated that all these unmanned probes have brought far more knowledge than the manned moon missions at a fracture of the cost.) I only doubt the feasibilty of colonies in the solar system and the very posssibility of interstellar travel.

As a first assignment, Musk should do self-sustaining 10000 people colonies/domes in 1) Antarctica 2) middle of Sahara desert 3) bottom of some shallow sea, say the Baltic.

In my view we are stuck on this rock, so we should focus on dealing with this situation, both techno-ecologically and "spiritually". Both the atheist cynic Voltaire (in Candide) and the old Hebrew who wrote the book of Genesis said that man's job was "to tend the garden". This also agrees with the eternal wisdom of Samwise Gamgee, these three sages are enough for me.

 

[The Anti-Targ]

2 hours ago, felice said:

That seems like a reasonable long-term goal, but exploring other "nearby" solar systems is going to take a loooong time, and sending a colony to one is likely to take a generation ship. Self-sufficient in-system colonies would be vital practice for an interstellar ship, if nothing else.

It might be, but I don't think we should count on that ever being possible.

That's what a moon colony would do. You get to learn how to sustain life for a medium length of time in a confined location that can be fairly easily accessed from Earth. And of course you build and launch a colonising vessel on the moon.

I think space-time warping mechanisms for travel, or a warp drive if you will, are likely. Wormholes are predicted by general relativity, so even our current understanding of the universe (which is surely far from anywhere close to complete) theorises some pretty weird stuff that could be exploited by advanced technology as a means of travel. Assuming no direct alien intervention, I would say we'll have something developed for rapid interstellar travel within the next 500 to 1000 years, which on a extinction event catastrophe timescale is a very short span of time.

 

[GAROVORKIN]

Im wondering if maybe there could be viable  commercial mining  on both the Moon and Mars?

[Spring Bass]

21 minutes ago, GAROVORKIN said:

Im wondering if maybe there could be viable  commercial mining  on both the Moon and Mars?

There could be, once there are research bases there. You can save a ton of money in launch costs if you make as much of what you need on site as you can. If there are any businesses willing to do that to help supply the bases, then it could happen. 

On 1/16/2018 at 10:49 AM, lokisnow said:

however, since inequality has increased so much, with so many tech billionaires enamored of space, I can easily see billionaires funding the efforts because the inequality makes it possible and they’ve got nothing better to do.

The Moon, definitely. If Musk, Bezos, or one of the other multi-billionaires was really determined to put a person back on the Moon and willing to borrow heavily against their stock holdings, they could pull that off. 

I don't think any of our set of billionaires could do that for a Mars mission, though. Even with Bezos, it would be a stretch - he'd have to sell out his entire stake in Amazon and still probably couldn't do it. 

All that said, I'd much rather have them spend a couple hundred million a year or so financing robotic space missions and telescopes. Bezos could easily fund another Cassini- or Curiosity-level mission ($2-3 billion plus operating costs) if he wanted to, and the science gains from that would be enormous. Or if another billionaire with less money wanted to fund something, Discovery Program missions only run about $400 million each plus operating costs (and I bet they could get some savings out of that).