Poll of the Day > Who do you think will reach Mars first: NASA, SpaceX, or some other entity?

(+) Yeah! (+)

I think SpaceX will reach Mars first because their plans are more direct to the Red Planet, and NASA is focused on getting back to the Moon before it reaches Mars.

Probably SpaceX since they don't seem to care about, like, survival rate...

NASA has several robots on Mars, they already won.

dragon504 posted...

NASA has several robots on Mars, they already won.

Damn, I should have specified a human mission....

Dua Lipa.

https://youtu.be/N000qglmmY0?t=77

Been there, was really rocky, no good places to eat, martians were not friendly and kept trying to grok me. Would not return.

There's no point in sending humans there.

Some other entity? There have been more UFO sightings lately. You think they're okay with giving people a lift?

Musk lost his mind so I wouldn't be surprised if SpaceX collapsed.

Zareth posted...

There's no point in sending humans there.

colonize

Krazy_Kirby posted...

colonize

Not in our lifetime

ya, one of two things are needed to colonize mars.

1. several trillions of gallons of water, if we ship water from earth to mars we're just creating problems on both ends
2. matter synthesis, just turn the rocks into water!

I thought the issue with mars wasn't the lack of water (there is plenty of ice) the issue was the thin atmosphere doesn't allow water to remain in a liquid state.
https://mars.nasa.gov/news/8358/mars-terraforming-not-possible-using-present-day-technology/

Lokarin posted...

ya, one of two things are needed to colonize mars.

1. several trillions of gallons of water, if we ship water from earth to mars we're just creating problems on both ends
2. matter synthesis, just turn the rocks into water!

1) Capture a comet. They're mostly water, it's been hypothesized that they're where most of Earth's water came from originally, and it's become a standard sci-fi trope to grab comets to harvest water because the assumption is that it's how we'll have to operate if we ever do become space-faring. Conversely, find a way to redirect multiple comets to bombard the surface of Mars to terraform on a budget.

2) Or you could just find a way to melt the Martian polar ice caps, where tons and tons of water is already stored. Or just mechanically harvest the ice, then defrost it once you get it back to where you want it.

Dreams of completely terraforming Mars are probably little more than fantasy (problems such as insufficient atmosphere, severe weather conditions, lack of a magnetic field, soil composition, lower gravity, etc etc make it unlikely at best), but in theory it wouldn't be impossible to establish interlinked domes (or underground complexes) that are pressurized and then harvest water to keep things running.

That being said, we're likely never going to manage it because the people who are most enthusiastic about space travel tend to fail to comprehend just how hard it is. We're barely able to willing to do things that require waaaaay less effort now (or we do them and then fuck them up because we're bad at futureproofing).

People will say stuff like "Oh, humans colonized the entire world even when they had to persevere through incredibly harsh conditions, so space is just the next step", but that's ignoring the qualitative leap in problems that need to be solved in order to accomplish it at even the most basic level.

Same reason we're likely never going to have massive undersea dome cities like people thought we would in the 50s. The idea is cool, but the reality is so far beyond what we're currently capable of.

Even if we could upgrade our understanding of science and technology to a point where we could make it feasible, it would probably take countless generations to get to that point - and we're far more likely to fuck the planet up and ruin our existing technological civilization long before we could do it.

Zareth posted...

Not in our lifetime

doesn't mean we shouldn't go

Zareth posted...

Not in our lifetime

Yes, the potential colonization of Mars, if it ever happens, would be a multi generational endeavor. It has to start SOMEWHERE though.

SpaceX has already passed too many 'promised' dates for me to have much faith in them. Along with numerous other logistics that they haven't addressed. I'll bet on NASA.

can't be spacex, because that's the one place that hasn't been corrupted by capitalism

https://youtu.be/cDYt-phUAxY

https://youtu.be/uqKGREZs6-w

Waters of Mars Dr. Who.

What ever happened to Mars Direct? That dude had a plan to make water from mars dust.

Zareth posted...

There's no point in sending humans there.

This is why it won't be a private entity: there's no profit to be made.

There was no point in going to the moon, either, but when it became something for nations to compete over we figured it out rather quickly. I'm not saying that's what will happen with Mars - as stated it's much harder - but might happen if it becomes a long-term national pride goal somehow.

wpot posted...

This is why it won't be a private entity: there's no profit to be made.

There was no point in going to the moon, either

Private entities are more likely to want to skip directly to the asteroid belt, because mining operations there could generate a lot of useful (and expensive) resources.

The main value for the moon is that it can be used as a launching point to more distant locations. Which would mostly only come into play once we're ready to go to those places. It's the same logic behind building some sort of large space station to act as a transport hub. Getting things out of and into Earth orbit is the largest problem with space flight, so setting things up as a two-stage trip with Earth-to-Moon or Earth-to-Station as the first step and then Moon/Station-to-Space as the second step would be far more effective than trying to do the whole trip in one go.

Getting to the moon originally was supposed to be proof of concept (and political oneupsmanship) more than anything. Which is why we haven't done much with it since.

Martians

NASA has been on Mars for decades

ParanoidObsessive posted...

1) Capture a comet. They're mostly water, it's been hypothesized that they're where most of Earth's water came from originally, and it's become a standard sci-fi trope to grab comets to harvest water because the assumption is that it's how we'll have to operate if we ever do become space-faring. Conversely, find a way to redirect multiple comets to bombard the surface of Mars to terraform on a budget.

Also yeah this. Other than food and equipement necessary for survival, you would not need/want to bring much with you out in space. Resources are actually extremely abundant in space locked away in rocks and moons and planetary rings and the like. It's just a matter of getting to them and processing them. It's why alien invasion stories about them wanting our water or whatever doesn't really make a whole lot of sense. It's much easier to get water in other places if they're capable of coming all the way here. Which leads to the Fermi Paradox of where is everyone? The simplest answer is if they are capable of coming here, they aren't because there's nothing here for them they can't get elsewhere.

Alice kramden.

when Ralph sees this months credit card bill.

bang zoom!