Mars not as hellish as you think.

[martin-w 3,234]

2 hours ago, birdguy said:

Well, isn't that the natural order of things?  Every living ends up becoming extinct.

 

Well yes, ultimately, but we'd be as thick as too short planks if we didn't do our best to avoid it and last as long as possible.

With your attitude, if we saw a car coming, we'd just stand there and let it hit us... because everyone dies one day.

[birdguy 3,943]

19 minutes ago, martin-w said:

With your attitude, if we saw a car coming, we'd just stand there and let it hit us... because everyone dies one day.

Yes, everyone dies one day but most of us don't do it intentionally.  As we age we know it's coming and we prepare fore it.  Same with those who die of disease and other causes.  And many of us have DNR certificates on our persons so if we are terminal we choose not to linger on with tubes in our veins.

We expect death.  We risk it in recreational activities like driving race cars and flying small aircraft and hang-gliders and sky-diving.  

But that is not the same thing as extinction.  More species that inhabited the earth are extinct than are currently living.  And many that are living now are close to extinction.  Some due to nature and some due to man's destroying their environments.  The Great Barrier Reef corals are becoming extinct due to warming seas.

I don't look at mankind as superior to the other animals we share this planet with just because we are happen to be more intelligent.  We all forage for food be it vegetation in a mountain meadow or a super market.  We all breed the same way.  We all breath oxygen for the same reasons. 

The great apes are more intelligent than meercats.  So do the great apes deserve to live more than meercats? 

I don't see the extinction of our species as something terrible.  And I don't subscribe to the idea that a chosen few are selected to carry on the species when 99.9% of us are left behind to face extinction.

Noel

 

[martin-w 3,234]

3 hours ago, birdguy said:

As for the colony on Mars.  Who are we trying to save from extinction? 

 

Itys not "who" its what. Its our species.

 

Quote

The scientists and engineers?  What about the 99.9% of the people who don't have advanced degrees in science and engineering?  Are you going to leave behind the Burger King and Dominos Pizza people?  Taxi drivers?  Newspaper reporters?  Automobile mechanics? Carpenters? Undertakers?  Brick Layers?  Tailors?  Sales people?  Gardeners and landscapers?  Ordinary plumbers and electricians?  All the retired people over 65? People like myself who never went to college and have no degrees?

 

Planet killing, species killing, events don't happen every day. By the time such a thing is manifest we would hope the Mars Colony would be significant, and populated by all the people you mention. And when such a dreadful event occurred, it would be no different to what happens now on Erath, in that other nations would take as many refugees as possible. And by then, we would hope there are colonies on Mars and many other places in the solar system. Remember, its multiplanetary not biplanetary.

 

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 left behind for extinction?

 

Nobody is being left behind for extinction. The point is that the Mars colony could also face an extinction level event too but Earth would remain. Or the colonies on the moons of other planets in the solar system could face extinction but Mars and the Earth would remain. Its about having as many colonies in the solar system as possible. 

[martin-w 3,234]

26 minutes ago, birdguy said:

But that is not the same thing as extinction.  More species that inhabited the earth are extinct than are currently living.  And many that are living now are close to extinction. 

 

And each species has a different path to follow, some are extinct in a few thousand years and other like the dinosaurs lasted 65 million years before becoming extinct. Human brings have been around for as mere 200,000 years. So we certainly aren't being greedy when we chose to step out of the way of a big rock heading toward the planet.

 

26 minutes ago, birdguy said:

I don't look at mankind as superior to the other animals we share this planet with just because we are happen to be more intelligent. 

 

Nor me.

 

26 minutes ago, birdguy said:

And I don't subscribe to the idea that a chosen few are selected to carry on the species when 99.9% of us are left behind to face extinction.

 

Its not about being left behind to face extinction, extinction might not come for hundreds or thousands of years. Its not like a big rock is on the way so, quick as a flash, in a matter of weeks we travel to Mars and instantly make a Mars colony for the elite and leave the ordinary people behind. 

By the time our entire species is threatened there could be colonies all over the solar system, especially if we buck our idea up and get on with it. Its absolutely no different to early man traveling across the globe and inhabiting new continents and islands on the Earth... its just further.

Edited May 13, 2021 by martin-w

[dmwalker 601]

4 hours ago, martin-w said:

The great diversity of materials you talk about are MORE abundant on the Moon, Mars and asteroid belts.

In the cases of the Moon and Mars, it seems many elements are speculated to be present in significant quantities based on trace amounts being detected on the surface. We could end up being disappointed.

[birdguy 3,943]

27 minutes ago, martin-w said:

Its about having as many colonies in the solar system as possible. 

You mean like the British and the Dutch and the Spanish and the Portuguese and the French and the Germans having as many colonies outside of Europe as possible?

Exploiting those planets and moons as we exploited earth by taking as much as we can and then leaving them when there is nothing more for the taking?

Noel

Edited May 13, 2021 by birdguy

[martin-w 3,234]

1 minute ago, dmwalker said:

In the cases of the Moon and Mars, it seems many elements are speculated to be present in significant quantities based on trace amounts being detected on the surface. We could end up being disappointed.

 

I'm not going to list all of them but we know there are many minerals on the Moon. Silicon, Rare Earth's, all though not abundant. Titanium, abundant.  Aluminium, abundant.  Precious metals. Helium 3, not abundant but far more so then on Earth.

 

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The pictures were recorded through three spectral filters and combined in an exaggerated false-color scheme to explore the composition of the lunar surface as changes in mineral content produce subtle color differences in reflected

 

[martin-w 3,234]

2 minutes ago, birdguy said:

You mean like the British and the Dutch and the Spanish and the Portuguese and the French and the Germans having as many colonies outside of Europe as possible?

Noel

 

No, like early man doing what human beings have always done, explore, travel, wander, find new lands. You wouldn't exist and none of your loved ones would if early humans hadn't moved out of the African Plain. 

[birdguy 3,943]

1 minute ago, martin-w said:

You wouldn't exist

If I never existed would I care?

Noel

[martin-w 3,234]

1 minute ago, birdguy said:

If I never existed would I care?

Noel

 

I give up. 😴

[dmwalker 601]

10 hours ago, martin-w said:

The military are bound to have a presence on the Moon or Mars. I suspect they would want their own base though.

All this discussion is a bit generic in that we talk about "people" and "military". I'm afraid the reality will be separate colonies representing Earth's major power blocs each having their own military "just in case". We seem to be moving away from the sort of international cooperation required to make our presence on Mars successful.

[dmwalker 601]

On the lighter side, it would be interesting to see real estate listings in a fully established Mars colony. I suppose the lava tubes would be the outrageously expensive "mansions".

[dmwalker 601]

In the absence of oil and coal deposits, methane would have to become the starting point for all the required medicines as well as for fuel.

[birdguy 3,943]

46 minutes ago, dmwalker said:

All this discussion is a bit generic in that we talk about "people" and "military". I'm afraid the reality will be separate colonies representing Earth's major power blocs each having their own military "just in case". We seem to be moving away from the sort of international cooperation required to make our presence on Mars successful.

So we would just be transferring Earths problems to a different location.

During this discussion I've been picturing only Americans setting up colonies on Mars.  Of course the Chinese and the Russians and other nations would be doing likewise.  Absent one homogenous colony there would several colonies each exhibiting the nationalistic competition we see here.

For example, a prime water source discovered in one colony probably wouldn't be equally shared and would be sold at whatever value the market would bear.

The sins of the species would not be left behind on earth and the space wars, hot and cold, might exist on colonized planets just as they do here on Earth.  

Maybe before we venture out into space we should first learn how to behave ourselves.

Noel

[martin-w 3,234]

2 hours ago, birdguy said:

Maybe before we venture out into space we should first learn how to behave ourselves.

 

This will be my last comment. I'm bored with repeating the same things. WE CAN DO BOTH! We can fix environmental problems and work on improving our relations with other nations AT THE SAME TIME as space exploration. Its not one or the other. We don't have to live in a stasis field and freeze all activities untill we live in a utopia. 

If anything, the way NASA and the US have had to cooperate with access to the ISS and joint missions has helped us to get on with each other.