Who wants to be a Mars colonist?

[New Nassrau]

I would go, however if they say its a one way trip... and if something goes wrong, then help is months away...

[Rynatia]

EARTH! EARTH! EARTH!

We're coming you damn aliens ...

Nah this is awesome I just really doubt it will be this easy...

I'd only go if I had nothing holding me back here, or if I had some form of duty up there.

[Multiflow]

So other then the for and against ... and other, what are the problems involved in starting a colony, say on the moon? I do not want to hear excuses about cost, if we actually want to do it, we can.

1. Safety (broad)
2. Transportation
3. Sustainment (broad) food, air
4. Possible initial priorities beyond establishment

[Kilobugya]

Yep. Ford, Edison, Gates, Jobs... they thought capitalism really sucked for innovation.

Edison, Gates and Jobs were more thieves than anything else. Edison was much less a genius than Telsa, Bill Gates just took QDOS written by Tim Peterson and resoled it to IBM under very favourable terms (with a contract his lawyer of a father wrote), and the real innovation of Apple was made by Steve Wozniak, not by Steve Jobs. So, your examples are a very good illustration on how capitalism rewards and promotes the ones who exploit the invention of others, not the ones who actually innovate.

And if you look at the real important innovations of the recent period you'll see that they are made either by the state (Internet is DARPA, nuclear power was developed by the states, space flight by the states, the world record of train speed (TGV) by state-owned SNCF, ...), by researchers working in state-funded universities all around the world, by companies that were outside the traditional competitive capitalism, like AT&T Bell Labs when AT&T was a state-enforced and controlled monopoly, which developed the transistor, the laser, Unix and the C language, among many others or by non-profit private entities like Institut Pasteur. So yes, capitalism really sucks for innovation, the most important innovations of the latest century were made at the margin of capitalism, in the sectors that don't truly follow its rules.

Capitalism is good at producing half-useless gadgets and marketing them to the masses, but the real innovation is done outside of it, in the fields of society that are more or less completely shielded from its short-term profit motivations.

[Kilobugya]

Gates, unlike the vast majority of rich people, uses most of his money to actually help the world.

I fully disagree with that. After making the whole computer science to slow down and stall for decades because of its horrible system (do you know that it's because of Windows that the new computer you'll buy tomorrow will still boot in 16-bits 8086 compatibility mode, and that half of the transistors in your CPU will be used only to continue emulating a completely obsoleted instruction set ?), the whole browser field to stagnate for the decade in which MS with in monopoly power in it, locking-in users with closed and always changing file formats, forcing vendors to ship only Windows killing all the alternatives, ... he's now using a bit of the money he stole from the world that way to invest into a "foundation" that, after serving its primary goal of fiscal evasion and advertising, is investing in weapon companies, lobbying in favour of stronger "IP" laws at the side of pharmaceutics trusts (regardless of how many lives are lost each year because of patents on drugs), and spreading the same infamous Windows system using the drug dealer strategy "the first shot is free", by giving Windows-equiped computers to schools everywhere in the world ? And in the meanwhile, while it has a budget surpassing the WHO, it doesn't do half of what the WHO does with its limited budget. No, definitely, the world would be a much better place without Bill Gates.

[Capitolinium]

Yep. Ford, Edison, Gates, Jobs... they thought capitalism really sucked for innovation.

Edison, Gates and Jobs were more thieves than anything else. Edison was much less a genius than Telsa, Bill Gates just took QDOS written by Tim Peterson and resoled it to IBM under very favourable terms (with a contract his lawyer of a father wrote), and the real innovation of Apple was made by Steve Wozniak, not by Steve Jobs. So, your examples are a very good illustration on how capitalism rewards and promotes the ones who exploit the invention of others, not the ones who actually innovate.

So, the capitalists I named aren't good because you like other capitalists and cite them to prove capitalism sucks.

[Zathganastan]

EARTH! EARTH! EARTH!

We're coming you damn aliens ...

Nah this is awesome I just really doubt it will be this easy...

I'd only go if I had nothing holding me back here, or if I had some form of duty up there.

Well if we go by what happened with European colonization of the New World most of the early colonists will likely die or suffer threw major disasters without any help from earth, so yeah it's not going to be easy.

[Winland]

I would only be willing to go once a successful colony is already established. Sitting in a barren, red desert for years with a couple dozen people doesn't sound like fun to me.

[Rynatia]

EARTH! EARTH! EARTH!

We're coming you damn aliens ...

Nah this is awesome I just really doubt it will be this easy...

I'd only go if I had nothing holding me back here, or if I had some form of duty up there.

Well if we go by what happened with European colonization of the New World most of the early colonists will likely die or suffer threw major disasters without any help from earth, so yeah it's not going to be easy.

Simple, we just bring more and bigger guns

[Kilobugya]

So other then the for and against ... and other, what are the problems involved in starting a colony, say on the moon? I do not want to hear excuses about cost, if we actually want to do it, we can.

1. Safety (broad)

The main problem I see with safety is radiations. All the rest we more or less know how to deal with - space is much less hostile than deep underwater, and nuclear submarines can work for decades.

The second problem is meteors, Mars or the Moon aren't shielded like the Earth is by its thick atmosphere.

For those two issues, I think a underground base would probably be safer, at least at first (until we have better materials and more knowledge of the meteoric activity and radiation levels). Especially since both the Moon and Mars are geologically inert, there is no risk of earthquake (which is the main risk of underground settlement).

2. Transportation

Transportation to the Moon is costly, but not that problematic. Lifting something to high orbit is already doing much of the work, going from there to the Moon isn't that hard. But if we were to make regular launch to the Moon, we would probably need something like a launch loop or space elevator.

Transportation to Mars is much more a problem due to the distance - the trip will take months at best, almost a year if you want to save on fuel. That's why I say : first aim on the Moon, later on Mars.

3. Sustainment (broad) food, air

With the space stations, we know how to provide in a closed environment for months. Recycling the air isn't that hard, it mostly require energy. Food is a bit more problematic, if we want to allow survival for long, we'll require to produce it locally, not just to ship it, and that would require work on hydroponics. Which would benefit everyone.

4. Possible initial priorities beyond establishment

Power generation is an issue. For the Moon, solar panel could work, but Mars has low solar input, but I think we can safely build a nuclear reactor on both.

Solitude and related is a problem if the base is too small, so we would either need a big enough base (~50 people at least, I would say) or to replace the people working at the base every few months or years (which cannot be done on Mars).

Low gravity is a problem, which can partly be compensated with regular exercise, but we'll probably need to build a big centrifuge to generate a 1g environment and have the people spend time (their sleep time ?) there.

If the people actually stay on the base, it creates new kind of problems : how to handle pregnancy and childbirth ? We have no idea on the effect of low gravity environment or radiation will effect pregnancy and early childhood. That's a kind of problem we'll have to solve sooner or later, but that I just don't know about. Many we should start by studying how mammals develop in the base ?

[Kilobugya]

So, the capitalists I named aren't good because you like other capitalists and cite them to prove capitalism sucks.

The capitalists you cite are those who were successful, and they weren't the ones who made any major contribution to humanity. The ones I cite for most part were not capitalists, and the few who were, didn't succeed nearly as much as the ones you cite (even if they were working on similar fields at a similar time), being indeed good evidence that capitalism doesn't reward innovation or progress, but selfishness and greed.

[Cocsoah]

Live AND die on Mars? No thank you. I would do it, but I like Earth, too!

[Lunatic Goofballs]

I suspect Mars might have insufficient mud and tacos to sustain life.

[United Union of North America]

I might do this i say maybe just because it could turn into a massive military base

[Czechanada]

Private enterprise and capitalism impede progress.

You know, planned obsolescence and the disregard of more efficient or environmentally friendly technology in favour of more profitable ones.

Yep. Ford, Edison, Gates, Jobs... they thought capitalism really sucked for innovation.

Try to debate from a slightly less dogmatic point of view.

Ford was the precursor to the cancer of McDonaldization, Edison simply plagarized from Tesla, and Jobs ran his company like a dictatorship and would often yell at his employees for messing up a single line of code.

[Zathganastan]

Well if we go by what happened with European colonization of the New World most of the early colonists will likely die or suffer threw major disasters without any help from earth, so yeah it's not going to be easy.

Simple, we just bring more and bigger guns

Not sure how that will help you in the inhospitable atmosphere of Mars if an earthquake rips threw your settlement but to each his own I suppose.

[Seriong]

Nope, rather not develop cancer early in life.

[The USOT]

Simple, we just bring more and bigger guns

Not sure how that will help you in the inhospitable atmosphere of Mars if an earthquake rips threw your settlement but to each his own I suppose.

Get enough guns and you can solve ANY problem

[Czechanada]

Not sure how that will help you in the inhospitable atmosphere of Mars if an earthquake rips threw your settlement but to each his own I suppose.

Get enough guns and you can solve ANY problem

Actually, I believe we will be using swords as weapons as to not cause damage to the building and cause oxygen leakage like in Brattacas.

[Nidaria]

Get enough guns and you can solve ANY problem

Actually, I believe we will be using swords as weapons as to not cause damage to the building and cause oxygen leakage like in Brattacas.

I am totally in favor of this.

[Capitolinium]

Yep. Ford, Edison, Gates, Jobs... they thought capitalism really sucked for innovation.

Try to debate from a slightly less dogmatic point of view.

Ford was the precursor to the cancer of McDonaldization, Edison simply plagarized from Tesla, and Jobs ran his company like a dictatorship and would often yell at his employees for messing up a single line of code.

Even if all this were true, how does this show that they weren't capitalists? Is there some point to this?

[Capitolinium]

So, the capitalists I named aren't good because you like other capitalists and cite them to prove capitalism sucks.

The capitalists you cite are those who were successful, and they weren't the ones who made any major contribution to humanity. The ones I cite for most part were not capitalists, and the few who were, didn't succeed nearly as much as the ones you cite (even if they were working on similar fields at a similar time), being indeed good evidence that capitalism doesn't reward innovation or progress, but selfishness and greed.

Industrialization never made any major contribution to humanity?

[Sociobiology]

I'm waiting until we colonize Europa, there's more ice there, and I like ice. And it's farther away. If I'm going to go out and be a part of the greater story of humankind and live and die on a planet far from earth, I'm going to want to make sure it's as far away from earth as possible. I totally would want to go if Mars was the only other place in the solar system that was interesting to explore aside from earth, but there's so much out there that I wouldn't want to miss out on the next colonization effort either in or out of our solar system just because I promised to die on Mars. I'd like to sign up for the job of permanent space explorer, I have no problems leaving earth behind, but if I'm going to do that then I immediately have a problem being tied down on any planet.
a side note do you think anyone will eventually write an actual hitchhikers guide to the galaxy if we do get out into space? It would be cool to be one of the first writers for that.

See, the problem with that is fuel. The Mars guys would be stuck on Mars forever because there would be no way to bring them a rocket and fuel to get off the planet. Until we build big spaceships that just float around and send drop pods to planets, there won't be space explorers. But if you went and lived on Europa, it would probably be much more interesting there than on Mars. Tiny gravity, moving ice, the possibility of an under-ice ocean harbouring life. You could possibly be the first person to discover extraterrestrial life, seeing that we'll never build a robot capable of drilling through that Europan ice without outside help.
And the Hitchiker's guide to the Galaxy must wait until we leave the Solar System.

you can MAKE rocket fuel on mars from the martian atmosphere.

[Sociobiology]

Simple, we just bring more and bigger guns

Not sure how that will help you in the inhospitable atmosphere of Mars if an earthquake rips threw your settlement but to each his own I suppose.

well earthquakes are incredibly rare on mars because there is little tectonic activity.
also we have these things called bulkheads.

[Sociobiology]

So other then the for and against ... and other, what are the problems involved in starting a colony, say on the moon? I do not want to hear excuses about cost, if we actually want to do it, we can.

1. Safety (broad)

The main problem I see with safety is radiations. All the rest we more or less know how to deal with - space is much less hostile than deep underwater, and nuclear submarines can work for decades.

The second problem is meteors, Mars or the Moon aren't shielded like the Earth is by its thick atmosphere.

For those two issues, I think a underground base would probably be safer, at least at first (until we have better materials and more knowledge of the meteoric activity and radiation levels). Especially since both the Moon and Mars are geologically inert, there is no risk of earthquake (which is the main risk of underground settlement).

2. Transportation

Transportation to the Moon is costly, but not that problematic. Lifting something to high orbit is already doing much of the work, going from there to the Moon isn't that hard. But if we were to make regular launch to the Moon, we would probably need something like a launch loop or space elevator.

Transportation to Mars is much more a problem due to the distance - the trip will take months at best, almost a year if you want to save on fuel. That's why I say : first aim on the Moon, later on Mars.

3. Sustainment (broad) food, air

With the space stations, we know how to provide in a closed environment for months. Recycling the air isn't that hard, it mostly require energy. Food is a bit more problematic, if we want to allow survival for long, we'll require to produce it locally, not just to ship it, and that would require work on hydroponics. Which would benefit everyone.

4. Possible initial priorities beyond establishment

Power generation is an issue. For the Moon, solar panel could work, but Mars has low solar input, but I think we can safely build a nuclear reactor on both.

Solitude and related is a problem if the base is too small, so we would either need a big enough base (~50 people at least, I would say) or to replace the people working at the base every few months or years (which cannot be done on Mars).

Low gravity is a problem, which can partly be compensated with regular exercise, but we'll probably need to build a big centrifuge to generate a 1g environment and have the people spend time (their sleep time ?) there.

If the people actually stay on the base, it creates new kind of problems : how to handle pregnancy and childbirth ? We have no idea on the effect of low gravity environment or radiation will effect pregnancy and early childhood. That's a kind of problem we'll have to solve sooner or later, but that I just don't know about. Many we should start by studying how mammals develop in the base ?

low gravity is not much of a problem for mammals zero/micro gravity however is.
this is the big problem with the moon it is in the gray area were we don;t know whether it is enough or not Mars would be fine however.

as for society about`150 people is ideal for a colony, the human brain is setup for that. Mars is ideal for colonization the moon makes a great fuel producer and research lab.