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watching the history channel
Sam06
Member Posts: 21,244 ✭✭✭✭
They have been showing a special on Mars and colonization of the red planet. Now I know I am not the smartest guy in the world, no college and I barely graduated HS.
But even I know there is no real way we could have a permanent colony on Mars.
Not enough gravity (38% or earth).
Too much radiation because there are no Van Allen belts to soak it up and divert it.
No real recorces to maintain the colony like good soil, fresh water that is easy to get, air, temperature is too cold.
But these guys keep going on about it. I don't get it. I don't have a problem with exploring and setting up an out post but an orbiting outpost would probably be easier than one on the ground.
RLTW
Comments
Earth , get rich , trash it and move on ..............?
I don't think the aliens will have us,,,,
They should send the Pawn Stars and American Pickers up there.
I watched a show the other day about volcanoes. They say there are many volcanoes on Mars and they have lava tubes that would protect them from radiation, and they think there is ice in the tubes that could be used for water and to make fuel from. It sounded like it was mostly hypothetical, but who knows until we set foot there.
Joe
People said we'd never make it to the moon but we did. We've got nothing to lose trying to settle Mars. Eventually this planet is not going to be fit to live on so they best get started figuring out somewhere to go now if the human species is going to survive.
I really wouldn't doubt that we're now repeating history. Mars looks like a planet that our early relativities already trashed many millions of years ago and wound up coming here.
It'll take many years but Mars atmosphere could be resurrected to support life. Researchers have already determined that the soil on Mars has some of the nutrients that would support plant life but it would have to be in a controlled environment due to temperature.
If we don't wipe this plant out with nuclear war it'll be possible in a few hundred years as technology is just now starting to explode like never before. Just look back, man was not even able to fly until 1903 which was just 119 years ago. Then 67 short years later man was standing on the moon. You ain't seen nothin' yet.
In the mean time they need to be working very hard on ways to redirect asteroids and other large bodies away that's on a collision course with Earth. It's not a matter of if it's just a matter of when we're going to be hit by the next big one that nearly wiped life completely off of this planet in the past. Next time there might not be anything left. You only have to look at the Moon to realize how many of these things are flying around out there since the Moon has no way to cover up the craters with erosion, oceans and plant life like Earth does.
Well, they got some pictures from the Mars Rover.....
sign me up well maybe
got to love th eold b movies
just one more but I would have to decline
IMHO, the USA setting sights on trips to the moon, mars, asteroids, and deep space were never quite meant to actually try to live in those hostile places. Along with learning many things about our "interstellar neighborhood", our country very successfully gained a great deal in the expansion of modern technology.
If only we would have kept much of this inventive tech to ourselves. 😔
I think they'll build a type of waystation on the Moon first. Not for people to live there permanently but a place to work. It would be a lot easier to send space ships loaded with a heavy cargo to other planets from the Moon than Earth. They can take a lot of small loads of equipment etc. from Earth to the Moon and store them and have crews living there in 6 month shifts working on assembling the space ships and making loads ready to blast off to Mars or where ever to explore. Living on Mars will be a project for our great great grandkids to work on, that is if we don't blow ourselves up first or get hit by an asteroid that puts us back in the dark ages.
I agree @Smitty500mag . It would make more sense to build a orbital way station or maby even a land based station on the moon. Escape velocity is low for the moon and they may even be able to put something on the surface that would accommodate people for short duration's of time.
If you can have a settlement on the moon, you can do it on Mars. Both require an enclosed habitation. Mars has the advantage of having a carbon dioxide atmosphere. If they can find water/ice on Mars, they can make rocket fuel from the pair. All it takes is C and H to make methane, and O to burn it again.
That is exactly why SpaceX is building methane/oxygen rocket engines.
well now that we wizzed in Russia's cheerios no more rocket engines so all plans on hold .
maybe NK has a few to spare 😁
I seem to remember the space program gave us Tang. Maybe if we set our sights even higher, we can get something better, like a really good powdered margarita?? Ya know, stuff that improves our quality of life.
There are thousands of products and processes we've gotten from the space program, but neither Tang nor Velcro are among them. Just one of those things is the aluminized plastic we now universally use for food containers like candy bars, potato chips, and many more. You like foods that stay fresh and moist - or dry? Thank the space program.
No tang? I believe you just shot to hell my whole childhood! Don
Everybody knows Tang came from the space program. You can't tell me that John Glenn wasn't drinking a big bag of Tang when he was orbiting in space over America. Probably eating an egg salad sandwich too while the Wild Blue Yonder was playing in the background on his 8 track. Even though he wasn't in the Air Force he probably liked that song better than Anchors Aweigh or the Marine Hymn.
Besides regular problems on another planet like Mars where there's no Home Depot or Ace Hardware to make a run to when you need something for a repair there's one bigger problem. If you get sick or injured on the Moon you could be back home in about 3 days to get medical attention or have equipment or parts sent to you since it's only about 239,000 miles from Earth. On Mars, according to what the date is, you could be 250 million miles from home when Mars is at it's furthest distance from Earth and that's years away. Even when it's at it's closest distance it's still about a 7 month trip. So your dead. Life expectancy will be short on Mars. A ticket to Mars will be one way only.
Okie, we fly our own crew capsules to the ISS now. SpaceX flies it. Boeing is supposed to have one also, but it is so late and so troubled that it may be cancelled. At least one other company is working on crewed vehicles.
There are two currently active space stations, the International Space Station (ISS) which is a joint effort of the US, Russia, the EU, Canada, and Japan - and Tiangong, which is the Chinese station that's now being built.
In decades past, we had Skylab and the Russians had several iterations of Salyut and Mir, some of which were strongly suspected of being military space stations. They've all come down now except the two in the previous paragraph.
I pretty much stopped watching The History Channel when the documentaries I was in ceased to be played on said channel.
The stuff they are showing now, no thanks.