Humans will never colonize Mars

[SkyHiker]

https://gizmodo.com/humans-will-never-c ... 316222/amp

Amen...

[notFritzArgelander]

Agreed. If Mars will be colonized it will be by some species other than our own.

[AntennaGuy]

Poppycock, I say. We will colonize not just Mars, but several of the the moons of Jupiter and Saturn, and beyond. That said, unless there are great advances (and relatively soon) in longevity-related science and medicine, then I don't expect to live to see it, but I am convinced of it. It will be difficult, but not impossible, and it will be accomplished gradually, unevenly, yet also inevitably. It may not be without fatalities and other setbacks, tragedies, or perhaps even some catastrophes. Such is the nature of human exploration. Such is the nature of Man. And it has been that way since Man first planned, and dared, to venture more than a few days journey away from the relative safety of his primitive village and his fellow tribesman. The naysayers do not have to go. The explorers, the pioneers, and the brave (and perhaps including the reckless) will go. And the optimistic dreamers among us (some of whom may be explorers themselves) will fund it. You can bet on it.

[notFritzArgelander]

I prefer to bet against it. Success requires a species other than Homo sapiens. The radiation environment alone dictates that. The disciplines of genetic engineering are required. Mere rocket science isn't up to the task.

[Bigzmey]

The author underestimates humans. We can accomplish a lot if there is a good reason for it. There is no good reason to colonize the Moon or Mars, yet. But if we discover something of value there to mine and make a profit, then just wait and see.

[notFritzArgelander]

Let's see here.....

OTOneHand there is an article that has a very detailed list of the resource, environmental, biological, and psychological difficulties of colonizing Mars. It's a shopping list of problems that do not look solvable without massive importation of resources to Mars. Plus there is no evidence that these problems are being addressed by those avowing interest in Mars colonization in any adequate manner.

OTOther hand we have two slogans. I.e. "poppycock" and "the author underestimates humans" with no evidence or argument argued that the list of problems to be solved is at all unrealistic.

Game set and match to the OP, methinks.

I realize that soundbites are all the rage these days.... but really. It would take a lot more for me to find the OP unpersuasive.

[Bigzmey]

Let's see here.....

OTOneHand there is an article that has a very detailed list of the resource, environmental, biological, and psychological difficulties of colonizing Mars. It's a shopping list of problems that do not look solvable without massive importation of resources to Mars. Plus there is no evidence that these problems are being addressed by those avowing interest in Mars colonization in any adequate manner.

OTOther hand we have two slogans. I.e. "poppycock" and "the author underestimates humans" with no evidence or argument argued that the list of problems to be solved is at all unrealistic.

Game set and match to the OP, methinks.

I realize that soundbites are all the rage these days.... but really. It would take a lot more for me to find the OP unpersuasive.

Well for the next 100 years (add or subtract a few depending on how optimistic/pessimistic you are, ). Technologies will catch up.
"NEVER colonize" does sound poppycock.

[notFritzArgelander]

Let's see here.....

OTOneHand there is an article that has a very detailed list of the resource, environmental, biological, and psychological difficulties of colonizing Mars. It's a shopping list of problems that do not look solvable without massive importation of resources to Mars. Plus there is no evidence that these problems are being addressed by those avowing interest in Mars colonization in any adequate manner.

OTOther hand we have two slogans. I.e. "poppycock" and "the author underestimates humans" with no evidence or argument argued that the list of problems to be solved is at all unrealistic.

Game set and match to the OP, methinks.

I realize that soundbites are all the rage these days.... but really. It would take a lot more for me to find the OP unpersuasive.

Well for the next 100 years (add or subtract a few depending on how optimistic/pessimistic you are, ). Technologies will catch up.
"NEVER colonize" does sound poppycock.

I think you overestimate technology and underestimate biology.

[Bigzmey]

And since I am the Pluto ambassador for some reason, I should say we will colonize it to.

[Bigzmey]

Let's see here.....

OTOneHand there is an article that has a very detailed list of the resource, environmental, biological, and psychological difficulties of colonizing Mars. It's a shopping list of problems that do not look solvable without massive importation of resources to Mars. Plus there is no evidence that these problems are being addressed by those avowing interest in Mars colonization in any adequate manner.

OTOther hand we have two slogans. I.e. "poppycock" and "the author underestimates humans" with no evidence or argument argued that the list of problems to be solved is at all unrealistic.

Game set and match to the OP, methinks.

I realize that soundbites are all the rage these days.... but really. It would take a lot more for me to find the OP unpersuasive.

Well for the next 100 years (add or subtract a few depending on how optimistic/pessimistic you are, ). Technologies will catch up.
"NEVER colonize" does sound poppycock.

I think you overestimate technology and underestimate biology.

Unfortunately, I know too much about biology. Scary!

[notFritzArgelander]

And since I am the Pluto ambassador for some reason, I should say we will colonize it to.

By that logic, as an intergalactic ambassador, I should say we will colonize M51.

[notFritzArgelander]

Well for the next 100 years (add or subtract a few depending on how optimistic/pessimistic you are, ). Technologies will catch up.
"NEVER colonize" does sound poppycock.

I think you overestimate technology and underestimate biology.

Unfortunately, I know too much about biology. Scary!

The biology of this is quite daunting. That's why I think that the prerequisite technology for Mars colonization is to develop a new species that is more Mars tolerant.

[Bigzmey]

And since I am the Pluto ambassador for some reason, I should say we will colonize it to.

By that logic, as an intergalactic ambassador, I should say we will colonize M51.

Yep, otherwise, bad bad ambassador.

[Pikaia]

I don't think we will even colonise Antarctica, even though it is far more hospitable than Mars and easier to get to.

[notFritzArgelander]

Let's see here.....

OTOneHand there is an article that has a very detailed list of the resource, environmental, biological, and psychological difficulties of colonizing Mars. It's a shopping list of problems that do not look solvable without massive importation of resources to Mars. Plus there is no evidence that these problems are being addressed by those avowing interest in Mars colonization in any adequate manner.

OTOther hand we have two slogans. I.e. "poppycock" and "the author underestimates humans" with no evidence or argument argued that the list of problems to be solved is at all unrealistic.

Game set and match to the OP, methinks.

I realize that soundbites are all the rage these days.... but really. It would take a lot more for me to find the OP unpersuasive.

Well for the next 100 years (add or subtract a few depending on how optimistic/pessimistic you are, ). Technologies will catch up.
"NEVER colonize" does sound poppycock.

That's merely an emotional reaction, though. It's not an argument that the OP list of problems to be solved is unrealistic. For it to actually BE poppycock the list of problems would have to be unrealistic. It isn't.

[AntennaGuy]

And rest assured that we'll NEVER build the Panama Canal:
According to https://www.history.com/news/7-fascinat ... nama-canal :
"In 1513, Spanish explorer Vasco Nunez de Balboa became the first European to discover that the Isthmus of Panama was just a slim land bridge separating the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. Balboa’s discovery sparked a search for a natural waterway linking the two oceans. In 1534, after no such passage across the isthmus had been found, Charles V, the Holy Roman emperor, ordered a survey to determine if one could be built, but the surveyors eventually decided that construction of a ship canal was impossible."
And later:
"More than 25,000 workers died during the canal’s construction. The canal builders had to contend with a variety of obstacles, including challenging terrain, hot, humid weather, heavy rainfall and rampant tropical diseases. The earlier French attempts had led to the deaths of more than 20,000 workers and America’s efforts fared little better; between 1904 and 1913 some 5,600 workers died due to disease or accidents."
And finally:
"Between 13,000 and 14,000 ships use the canal every year."

[notFritzArgelander]

And rest assured that we'll NEVER build the Panama Canal:
According to https://www.history.com/news/7-fascinat ... nama-canal :
"In 1513, Spanish explorer Vasco Nunez de Balboa became the first European to discover that the Isthmus of Panama was just a slim land bridge separating the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. Balboa’s discovery sparked a search for a natural waterway linking the two oceans. In 1534, after no such passage across the isthmus had been found, Charles V, the Holy Roman emperor, ordered a survey to determine if one could be built, but the surveyors eventually decided that construction of a ship canal was impossible."
And later:
"More than 25,000 workers died during the canal’s construction. The canal builders had to contend with a variety of obstacles, including challenging terrain, hot, humid weather, heavy rainfall and rampant tropical diseases. The earlier French attempts had led to the deaths of more than 20,000 workers and America’s efforts fared little better; between 1904 and 1913 some 5,600 workers died due to disease or accidents."
And finally:
"Between 13,000 and 14,000 ships use the canal every year."

Cute, but a fairly irrelevant deflection. What out of the OP list of problems is not a problem? What has an adequate solution?

Charles V engineers made a correct decision that the Panama Canal was not possible. They didn't have the technology to do it. The steam and internal combustion engines had not been invented yet. Was the body count acceptable?

The OP has simply listed a set of problems that aren't being worked and many (involving genetic editing) that might not be acceptable.

[StarBru]

I'm reading this post and at the same time a commercial comes on TV that is relevent to our discussion here:

Ladies and Gentlemen, Lego has already figured it out! We ARE going to Mars! (At least Lego is.)

Don't ask me why I'm watching TeenNick........

[GCoyote]

The biology of this is quite daunting. That's why I think that the prerequisite technology for Mars colonization is to develop a new species that is more Mars tolerant.

I don't think you realize how close we are to being able to create such a species. IMO it's already happening, we just don't realize it.

I've heard others opine that humanity is getting weaker or even "stopped evolving" since modern life is so easy compared to the brutal existence of our ancestors not many centuries removed. While it's true that we've eliminated all of the large predators, stopped the spread of most communicable diseases, and could end hunger if we really tried, evolution has not stopped. It never stops.

Here is a short list of modern evolutionary pressures that our species is still in the process of adapting to:

• People who attend college or obtain other advanced education are more likely to meet and mate with intellectual peers. This would appear to be a feedback loop for certain kinds of intelligence.

• People who can tolerate higher levels of air pollution preferentially survive in urban environments.

• People who cannot safely operate a motor vehicle die disproportionately at younger ages. (I'm actually kind of hoping this factor speeds up a bit )

Those are just off the top of my head. We are always in the process of becoming a new species. We just don't notice it over the short time covered by our histories. What are a few centuries to evolution?

The Chinese have already censured/punished one geneticist for helping people have designer babies without government approval. That's just the one we know about. We are on the verge of assuming near arbitrary control over human biology. I'm sure you've seen many fictional scenarios where this goes horribly wrong. I personally don't think Hollywood has even begun to consider the true range of possibilities good or bad. Few people have. Terra Incognita indeed.

As I stated in an earlier thread, I'm reasonably sure that the mechanical and biological issues that prevent long term space travel will eventually be conquered. One thing I noticed during all of the 50th anniversary celebrations around the moon landing; The actual science needed to land on the moon was actually well in hand by late `50s. The missing steps were to turn scientific knowledge into working technology, i.e. engineering and organize the project for a highly specialized goal outside previous human experience. The building blocks were there, society just didn't realize it.

That's the missing bit. There is currently no single organizing principle that would sustain a Mars program with the same priority and level of societal enthusiasm as the original space race. If and when such a principle does emerge, it will likely come as a surprise to the general public and the political elite alike. It will also not likely happen until all of the scientific prerequisites have been met leaving only the final engineering solutions to be put in place. People will then start to wonder why it had not already been done, noisey Congressional hearings will ensue and things will start to happen.

We would not have landed on the Moon in 1969 if the Cold War had not been the overarching political theme of the era. Some similar transnational context will probably need to arise before a Mars colony becomes a real priority. I have no idea what that geopolitical context will be, but until it comes along, we will continue to squabble amongst ourselves over the increasingly trivial issues that seem to consume us.

We will go to Mars when society is ready for it, not before.

[GCoyote]

Coyote's Rule of Absolutes

If you use the words "always" or "never" about a social issue, you should expect to be proven wrong at some point. Human existence is a relative condition.