Colonizing Mars: Evaluating the Why

[Klax (The only thing that matters is faith expressed in love.)]

The underground colonies already exist. Cheyenne Mountain is the overt one. Area 51. There are probably ten in Britain. Gibraltar is one. Many more in the States. London, particularly Hampstead. Wiltshire. The Soviets (whoops!), China, Israel, Sweden, Norway, Finland, Canada, the Koreas, Germany, France, Iran, Switzerland, India, Pakistan etc, etc all have them, manned and mothballed, ready to go. A hundred thousand people at least would survive another Chicxulub-Wormwood - which is never coming. Know what Ukrainian for the latter is? No Moon (a certainty: as Trump said, it’s the ultimate high ground) or Mars base could ever help with anything. Like what? Some woo tech?

We’re going to be somewhat busy cooling the Earth to 1800 levels by 2300 and giving everyone a decent quality of life without going nuclear.

[paleomalacologist (David Campbell)]

It depends not just on where you are globally, but how high - it can be appreciably warmer right at the surface than a meter or two up, given how thin the atmosphere is.

[beaglelady]

@T_aquaticus

God did have Noah build an ark.

But it only saved 8 people.

[beaglelady]

@paleomalacologist

It depends not just on where you are globally, but how high - it can be appreciably warmer right at the surface than a meter or two up, given how thin the atmosphere is.

What comment are you addressing?

[paleomalacologist (David Campbell)]

Weather forecast for Mars.

Personally, I think it might be a good thing to colonize Mars to allow people to live there and leave more room for nature on Earth. But the technology would indeed be quite expensive and challenging. Although one can think of a lot of good that might be done with the money spent on exploring Mars, as C. S. Lewis once pointed out, at least a space race is a relatively harmless challenge for countries to engage in, instead of warfare.

Eventually, the warming of the sun would make Earth too hot for life. That’s many hundreds of million years away, assuming no disruption occurs sooner, but on that time scale being able to move to more distant bodies would have advantages.

Making Mars habitable beyond merely enclosures little different from a space station would probably require making it significantly bigger, to have the gravity to hang onto an atmosphere better. That’s not very technologically feasible. I suppose with significant investment in the infrastructure, it would be possible to very gradually nudge some orbits, but the entire mass of the asteroid belt is not all that much on a planetary scale. I doubt that one could take a couple of major moons away from Jupiter.

[beaglelady]

@paleomalacologist

I doubt that one could take a couple of major moons away from Jupiter.

Nobody wants to move Jupiter’s moons. But if a large enough asteroid is headed our way we need to do something about it.

[beaglelady]

@Vinnie

I tend to agree that for global extinction events it’s in the hands of God. But On the flipside I suppose some might be thinking that there is nothing wrong with trying to avert disaster and prevent injuries. Was it wrong for people to invent modern medicine, seatbelts, cars that crumple and antilock breaks? Wrong to study the weather and predict hurricanes in advance? Wrong to study geology in an effort to predict earthquakes?

And who doesn’t get out of the way when you’re in the path of an oncoming train, car, tornado, or whatever? Or if you see a child wandering into heavy traffic, what do you do?

[beaglelady]

@knor

I have been reading a lot of science fiction (probably too much). One of the books had a scenario where the Moon shattered and large chunks hit Earth.

Our own moon was probably formed when another planet crashed into the earth.

@Klax

A hundred thousand people at least would survive another Chicxulub-Wormwood - which is never coming.

Never coming? And we know that how exactly?

@T_aquaticus

I wasn’t aware of that. Research might uncover some solutions, such as the type of light and exposure times.

That’s done in commercial hen facilities. Keep the lights on and it disrupts the hens’ reproductive systems, making them lay more eggs. .

[Klax (The only thing that matters is faith expressed in love.)]

@beaglelady

@Klax

A hundred thousand people at least would survive another Chicxulub-Wormwood - which is never coming.

Never coming? And we know that how exactly?

Jupiter hoovers stuff up. There’s nowt left of that size that could come in. Extremely low probability. Not in our species’ lifetime. And Ukrainian for wormwood is Chernobyl. All we have to worry about is global warming and social injustice. Not in that order. In fact the former is a function of the latter. The evils of American society are killing thousands [of times] more than climate change in America.

[Mervin_Bitikofer]

@Klax

Jupiter hoovers stuff up.

Great line, that! Suddenly I have images of a towering regal figure pushing a vacuum cleaner and looking over at little ol’ earth … “anything else I can do for you?”

[beaglelady]

@Klax

Jupiter hoovers stuff up. There’s nowt left of that size that could come in. Extremely low probability. Not in our species’ lifetime.

Plenty of huge chunks remain out there that could come in. Scientists think we get a major meteor strike every 75 to 100 years. The Chelyabinsk meteor would have been far more destructive had it come in at a sharper angle. The 1908 Tunguska impact flattened 830 square miles. Thankfully the area was sparsely populated.

[Klax (The only thing that matters is faith expressed in love.)]

Nothing compared with Chicxulub.

[Maaike_Harmsen]

All the reasons I mentioned and discussed in my article! I delve a little deeper on the extinction argument, stating that the promise Noah got tells us we will not become extinct, but there is a stern warning to take good care of humanity. What do you think of that promise? I like your expansion on knowledge, if I had more room I would have expanded on that!

[T_aquaticus]

@knor

I agree. It just is unlikely that someone would pay the costs of maintaining an underground colony on Earth just as an insurance against possible planet-wide catastrophes.

Mars is going to require the same maintenance with the added cost of having to use interplanetary rockets for supplies.

@knor

Edit: I have been reading a lot of science fiction (probably too much). One of the books had a scenario where the Moon shattered and large chunks hit Earth. The surface of the Earth became hot and sterile for several thousands of years. Only some small colonies survived, one underground, one in the deep sea, some in space. Just a hypothetical scenario but it was nice to see how the author developed the possible future in such a case. Anyhow, if a large chunk would hit Earth, the surface might be hostile for life for thousands of years. In that case, shallow underground structures would probably not be enough for survival.

My opinion is if it hasn’t happened in the last 4 billion years then there is a low chance of it happening in the next 1 million years.

[T_aquaticus]

@paleomalacologist

Personally, I think it might be a good thing to colonize Mars to allow people to live there and leave more room for nature on Earth.

Even if we moved half the human population to Mars we would probably see the Earth’s population recover within 2-3 generations.

[beaglelady]

@Klax

Nothing compared with Chicxulub.

So what? Just because an asteroid doesn’t cause planet-wide extinctions, it could cause massive deaths and that’s not good.

[beaglelady]

@T_aquaticus

My opinion is if it hasn’t happened in the last 4 billion years then there is a low chance of it happening in the next 1 million years.

You mean an asteroid strike?

[Klax (The only thing that matters is faith expressed in love.)]

Vastly unlikely. Going to Mars won’t stop it even so.

[T_aquaticus]

@beaglelady

You mean an asteroid strike?

I was replying to a scenario where the Moon is shattered and chunks fall to the Earth.

[LM77 (Liam Maguire)]

@Klax

Going to Mars won’t stop it even so.

Interesting point. And when you are living in a module or under a dome, the right meteor in the wrong place could put an end to the entire colony. For instance, even a shower of relatively small space rocks could wipe out a solar farm and the budding colony with it.