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Should we live on Mars?

I'm not going to Mars. While I applaud efforts towards space exploration and am probably guilty of idolising individuals who have been involved, I am not fucking stepping foot off this planet myself. Not Happening.
 
Yogibear said:
Given the absolute mess we have made of this planet do you really think we should be trusted on another?
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We've done a lot this last 50 years to make things a lot more sustainable here. Still plenty of challenges, but you can only learn so fast.

In the longer term, if we don't move on, we're extinct.

Mars will only ever be a temporary experiment.
 
We should definitely live on Mars. All this total BS from the whinging tree huggers about buggering up planets...:rolleyes: They'll be the saps left on earth when the next dino-killer meteorite strikes, all huddled around a fire made from fairtrade quinoa & biodegradable coffins, whimpering about how the extinction level event will impact on their carbon footprint. Whereas I'll be sipping margaritas on the shores of newly flooded Utopia Planitia after we nuked the polar ice caps in full on Total Recall style. :cool:
 
Gravity on Mars is only 38% as strong as on Earth and there is no data on the health effects of living in such low-G conditions. The only two regimes we know about for assessing human health effects are: 1g (perfectly adapted)) and 0g (awful). The Apollo astronauts spent no more than a few days on the Moon (17% of Earth-normal), so that's not helpful. It would be a very good idea to do some research with centrifuges in Low Earth Orbit, spinning to simulate Mars-level gravity. We could start with quite small experiments, using mice, but for the most reliable results, ultimately it would be a good idea to use human test subjects.
 
urbanspaceman said:
Gravity on Mars is only 38% as strong as on Earth and there is no data on the health effects of living in such low-G conditions. The only two regimes we know about for assessing human health effects are: 1g (perfectly adapted)) and 0g (awful). The Apollo astronauts spent no more than a few days on the Moon (17% of Earth-normal), so that's not helpful. It would be a very good idea to do some research with centrifuges in Low Earth Orbit, spinning to simulate Mars-level gravity. We could start with quite small experiments, using mice, but for the most reliable results, ultimately it would be a good idea to use human test subjects.
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Mars One is still in the early stages but the assumption seems to be humans will be heading there to set up the first colony in the 2030's - About Mars One - Mars One

Also a BBC news story from today saying a large body of water, a lake 20km across has been found underground on Mars - Liquid water 'lake' revealed on Mars
 
Yogibear said:
Given the absolute mess we have made of this planet do you really think we should be trusted on another?
Click to expand...

I don't see how it's a matter of "trust". Either humans are up to the challenges involved in settling another world, or we aren't. There's no God or other higher power handing out points for being a nice little tool-using social species, and the universe doesn't care whether we fuck it up or not. Maintaining a habitable environment is a matter of human self-interest.

So far as we can tell, Earth is unique in the entire universe in having life on it. If you consider life to be a good thing, then humans are the only organisms capable of maximising that goodness by spreading life to other planets and star systems. Because if we do go out there, we won't be unaccompanied.
 
cheesethief said:
If we get to pick & choose whose DNA goes to Mars then simply leave the bastard flies and the evil fucker spiders behind. Simples.
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That's not going to work. If an entire planet like Mars is terraformed, then sooner or later someone (or something!) will unwittingly transport viable fly eggs there, in spite of any screening that might be going on. It would be possible to keep flies out of something small like a handful of visiting spacecraft or a few surface bases, but once you're in the business of constructing entire ecosystems capable of supporting millions or billions of people and their comings and goings, cross-contamination with Earth vermin is a statistical inevitability.

Spiders aren't "evil". Unlike flies, they aren't vectors for human diseases. The vast majority of spider species are utterly harmless to humans, being unable to even penetrate human skin, and the ones that are potentially harmful are largely limited to tropical biomes, which would be rare to non-existant on a terraformed Mars.

Average house spider weight is 90 grams, average human weight is 62,000 grams. This means that humans are roughly 688.8 times more massive than the typical spiders they are likely to encounter. Humans being afraid of spiders is like a 500 metre tall tungsten-coated giant being deathly afraid of a naked human armed only with an aluminium knife. Utterly ridiculous. It would be a far more efficient and sensible use of resources to provide humans with the means of overcoming their completely irrational phobias.
 
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