Martian Settlement, 2090

Discussion in 'Astronomy, Exobiology, & Cosmology' started by Xylene, Apr 27, 2009.

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Would you emigrate to Mars if you were given the chance?

  1. Yes--there on the next flight

    52.0%
  2. No

    8.0%
  3. Maybe

    32.0%
  4. Haven't given it much thought

    8.0%
  1. Xylene Valued Senior Member

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    Here's a question for all the space types and sci/fi people--possibly I should've put this thread in that forum;

    In the event of Mars being eventually opened up for settlement near the far end of this century, would you emigrate to Mars to work or retire if you had the chance?
     
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  3. draqon Banned Banned

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    I would leave right now this very second if a chance to me was given.

    What is required from me?

    What do I need to say?

    What do I need to do there upon arrival?

    I am ready.

    I am always ready.

    for MARS. my life.
     
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  5. Xylene Valued Senior Member

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    Well, draqon, here's the basic assumption--people first land on Mars in about 2030 AD, and for the next 60 years they work to build up protected communities and begin the process of terraforming. Now the terraformation process would probably take at least several hundred years to have any major effect, but definitely by 2090 there would be a number of underground or above-ground settlements or even cities for people to settle, and the Martian bigwigs have decided to open the planet for settlement. I think this is the most possible scenario, given enough effort and sufficient luck.
     
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  7. draqon Banned Banned

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    Xylene, there will be no terraforming on Mars for at least 1000 years. However you are correct about the isolated settlements being built. Domes with photosynthetic plants...power houses...living quarters...transportation
     
  8. draqon Banned Banned

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    thing is Xylene...colonists who are going on Mars have to be a party of half are males and half are females.
     
  9. orcot Valued Senior Member

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    A single ammonia/methane rich comet could increase the average temprature with x°C enough at least to melt the CO2 out of the polar caps. So I do beleive that we will began terraforming Mars to get it warmer and the moon (to give it at least a triton dense like atmosphere) within a 100 years.
    The big changes like creating a life friendly enviroment will probably take a very long time.

    If you are going to send upthe exact same amound of man and women then you might as well send up couples with a child wish.
     
  10. cosmictraveler Be kind to yourself always. Valued Senior Member

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    That would depend on many factors. Safety would be my biggest concern. Have they found a way to prevent all of the radiation from hitting people who work there? How about doctors, dentists, hospitals, food, water, transportation, cost of an apartment and on and on. So many things to consider before ever thinking about moving that far away.
     
  11. phlogistician Banned Banned

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    We're going to need a huge leap in propulsion technology, because there's no way it's affordable to settle on Mars using current technology. There's no way regular people in 100 years are going to be able to afford to retire there, as all their supplies would need to be shipped in, and I can't see what infrastructure that could exist in 100 years appealing to the few that could afford to go!

    Mars isn't a realistic goal, transit times are too long, and costs too high, for no tangible benefit.
     
  12. PieAreSquared Woo is resistant to reason Registered Senior Member

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    you're dreaming ... ain't going to happen
     
  13. Xylene Valued Senior Member

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    I agree that the process of terraformation will be slow to get started, but once begun it will speed up. Also you have to take into account that Mars is of course a smaller world than Earth, with a much less dense atmosphere. Therefore the terraformers will be altering the climate of Mars immediately as they warm the planet, just by making the atmosphere more dense. Moreover, even with an atmosphere that eventually becomes as dense as that of Earth, you're still going to have a mass of air that has far less volume than that of the envelope of gases about the Earth. Given that, it would take a lot less time for any significant warming to take place--though I haven't done the maths for that, it's just common sense as I see it. Earth's atmosphere has warmed about a degree C in the past 200 years, since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, so it shouldn't take that long to raise the temperature of Mars by the same amount.

    Now, regarding the people who would be shifting to Mars;

    1) The initial stage would be labourers, mostly single men or women, to do the bull-work of setting up the physical infrastructure of the colony towns, cities, transport networks, power plants etc etc.

    2) Second stage would be the settlers who come as young couples. They'll be either with or without a family--it's about eight months flight to Mars, by Hohman orbit, and you're in a small ship for that long with a bunch of fractious kids...not good

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    So most of the settlers I guess would come up before they have kids.

    3) The third stage of settlement will begin when people start coming up to retire on Mars, but I suggest that won't happen until at least 100 years after the initial landings. There will always be a few people who, having finished their working lives on Mars, will decide to live out the rest of their lives there; but I suggest that just like in the early days of any colony, most people would retire to 'home' on Earth (depending of course on how crappy Earth was by that time). It won't be until the initial work is done and the cities and towns are fairly well established before the old folks decide that Mars is a good place to retire--having given their whole lives to Mars, why not stay there? Besides, those born on Mars, and knowing no other world as home, will be staying on.
     
  14. Balerion Banned Banned

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    This belongs in pseudo-science.
     
  15. Xylene Valued Senior Member

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    I'd suggest that the initial settlements would be built underground to ensure safety from cosmic rays. Alternatively, the vast dead sheild-volcanoes of Olympus Mons, and the other volcanoes of the Tharsis Plateau, could be used for shelter. They are basalt volcanoes like the islands of Hawaii, and they will have hundreds of miles of lava tubes in their flanks. (The massif of Olympos Mons alone has about the same area as Montana). These tubes could be enclosed and fitted with airlocks to provide ready-made underground homes, safe from cosmic rays.

    As for doctors, nurses, med. facilities, they will need to have them there for the labouring crews anyway. As for food, water, transport, I daresay that infrastructure will be in place already before the main body of settlers arrives. That's why I suggest an initial construction phase of ca. 60 years.
     
  16. Xylene Valued Senior Member

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    Why does it belong there, JDawg? It's perfectly reasonable science, based on principles that are well-understood. It's certainly not psuedoscience to suggest that one day people are going to land on Mars, or that people will be going to live and work there. The thread doesn't even fit any of the categories as set down in the psuedoscience sticky, (which I obviously checked.) I'll state this as a certainty--by this date 100 years from now, there will certainly be people living on Mars, and having been born there, will regard Mars as their only home.

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  17. Xylene Valued Senior Member

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    I would agree with you, phlogistician--just as I would have agreed with you if in 1509 you had said that the colonies in the Americas could not thrive because the ships were so slow getting across the Atlantic. Yet technology doesn't stand still, as you know--in 1903, powered flight was thought to be impossible, yet look at the world 106 years later. Who's to say what our grandchildren will be capable of doing?

    As for a lack of infrastructure after 100 years, I'll use my own country as an example--in 1840, New Zealand was a land of warring cannibal tribes; 100 years later, the entire landscape of this country had been transformed from wild forest land, scrub and swamp to essentially what we have today.
     
  18. mikenostic Stop pretending you're smart! Registered Senior Member

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    Unless politics change, colonies on Mars by 2090 is a pipe dream.
    We've already landed on the moon. How many times have we been back there? Very few. Why? Politics and funding.
    Hell, a ticket up into space cost 20 million freakin dollars!
    While I do think a manned trip to Mars is possible by 2090, there is no way we'll have a whole colony built by then. Just not logistically possible given our current path.
     
  19. draqon Banned Banned

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    Pipe dream for you maybe, mr. American. Russians are already capable of landing on Mars and Roskosmos is planning a mission to Mars by 2030. A biological Mars-500 test is going on now to test the ability of Life Supporting System to sustain astronauts on their voyage.

    While NASA decays with its shuttle bursting here and there...Russian Space Agency along with its partners (including China) are expanding their space control.

    A view of an actual future spaceship

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    wood inside...

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  20. draqon Banned Banned

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  21. Aerika Registered Senior Member

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    100 years ago they would have laughed at a suggestion we would walk on the moon.


    http://www.abc.net.au/science/news/stories/s1037824.htm

    I'm not suggesting we will colonize the moon by 2090 but I do believe that science is advancing at a much faster pace in the information age than the last one hundred years.
     
  22. draqon Banned Banned

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    By 2090 we will have research bases on surface of the moon and one research base on surface of Mars. Whether we will colonize the moon by 2090...is unlikely. But there will be researchers there.
     
  23. mikenostic Stop pretending you're smart! Registered Senior Member

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    draq, you and Aerika aren't getting my point. I'm not saying humans aren't capable of donig it, I'm saying that due to all the economical and political setbacks whe currently have, and the trouble with funding this kinda stuff, I just don't see it happening.

    If humans are that capable, why do trips to space cost 20 mil a piece, and not say, $1000 or so?
    Figure out a way to make space flights cost about $1000, now...in 2009, and you'll have a better understanding of why I don't see Mars happening in 80 years.
     

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