Plan to colonize the moon and mars.

[spacester]

I was not aware I was preaching. And you're not? No fury like orthodoxy challenged, eh?

Forgive me for instigating an interesting thread. There seemed a shortage of such, but I'm sure that's just me.

Major projects are not developed in a social vacuum. They need social context and a social imperative. Stating those parameters is preaching? This forum is too restricted for social context?

If I was preaching I am done. I thought I was laying the groundwork for the development of an engineering plan, and I pretty much covered it. So all I have to do to stop preaching is to not repeat myself on those points. Am I permitted to repeat those founding premises when asked about them?

I'll stick to facts and links, sir.

Who? Members of the Mars Society? Certainly not at NASA or Roscosmos or ESA. NASA has a small number, a very small number, of people working on exploration of Mars by humans. The number of people at NASA who are working on colonizing Mars is very close to zero.

The world of space development is not restricted to NASA, ESA, and Rosscosmos. Such as:

http://www.marssociety.org/ptf/index.shtml

http://www.marshome.org/

http://www.wired.com/science/space/news/2005/07/68311

http://www.1000planets.com/mars_colony_page1.php

http://spacegeneration.org/

http://www.google.com/virgle/plan_1.html

http://www.googlelunarxprize.org/

[one_last_preach]
Those are just some of the enthusiastic amateurs. Say what you will, discredit them all if you can and if you must, but the list of private fortunes working on this stuff is much more impressive. I already listed some of them.

Seriously, you didn't even know these groups existed before? Or you consider them in the same category as UFO believers, or what?

Any chance you could lighten up and let the folks here have some fun?[/one_last_preach]

 

[D H]

I was not aware I was preaching. And you're not? No fury like orthodoxy challenged, eh?

Yes. I am preaching -- preaching about doing engineering in the Engineering section of PF.

 

[spacester]

I'll be back later with some engineering stuff then.

 

[spacester]

Just this for now.

My favorite first payload to begin development of the lunar industrial park:

http://www.higp.hawaii.edu/srr/SRR-VI-presentations/Joyner-Rod-Power_lander_SRR6.pdf

A power lander to establish a local grid with 250 KWe at 400 hz 3 phase delta, pick your voltage and 750 KW thermal energy for those ISRU processes that require large flows of heat. Solar or Nuclear. The grid would be by good old cable, not microwaves, because the different tenants huddle together for mutual support anyway.

With power and heat and another landing, we can start extracting oxygen and seeing what we can do with glass and plain old regolith. We can see if we can create a paved landing field in situ with a microwave apparatus. We can start building air tight structures and see if we can get some doors and windows shipped up.

With LUNOX, we can support a lunar landing system based on round trips to L-1, giving access to the lunar surface to anyone who can get their payload out to L-1 where our lander can grab it.

 

[luma]

Try to have a bit of vision. Men on Mars would be the grand conclusion symphony of our societies.

It must be hard having aspergers but thing's can have more value than their cold hard immediate gain.

 

[D H]

The thread has been moved out of engineering. While I am a mentor, I did not make that move. I am too involved in this discussion to be performing any kind of moderation with regard to this thread.So, now that this thread is in General Discussion, discussions of the ethics of Mars colonization/terraforming are very much fair game.

The views on this topic span a lot of ground. Here is how I see these views, from one extreme to another:

1. We shouldn't terraform Mars no matter what, even if it's sterile.
2. If Mars has life, we shouldn't terraform Mars, doubly so if the life is non-terrestrial in nature. Variants:
   • If Mars has life, we should leave Mars alone. Period.
   • If Mars has life, we should study it but only with unmanned probes that are completely and thoroughly sterilized multiple times during the fabrication process and a few more times on the way to Mars.
   • If Mars has life, it is obviously in trouble. We should aeroform Mars (make it more suitable for Mars life).
   • If Mars has life, limited human missions to Mars are acceptable if we take extreme cautions to ensure that we don't introduce any terrestrial life to Mars.
3. If Mars has life, we can still terraform Mars, but we should make little enclaves for those obviously dwindling remnants of Mars life -- if doing so doesn't cost too much.
4. If Mars has life, we should commit xenocide.

Some reading material:

"Ethics of terraformation"
http://library.thinkquest.org/C003763/index.php?page=terraform02
A summary article. Use this to get a flavor of the debate. From the article, "The vast majority of Mars scientists and planetary biologists belong to the 'Green' camp in that they believe that Mars should be made 'green'. They have several impressive arguments in their arsenal. ... The 'Red' camp, in the minority, is adamantly opposed to the terraformation of Mars. 'Reds' believe that humans have no right to essentially destroy the current face of Mars just for our own concerns, and that we should preserve it in its current state so that we might conduct scientific experiments and learn more about the planet."

David Grinspoon, "Is Mars Ours? The logistics and ethics of colonizing the red planet", Slate, 2004.
http://www.slate.com/id/2093579/
Dr. Grinspoon is the Curator of Astrobiology at the Denver Museum of Nature & Science and has served on multiple NASA and ESA interplanetary science teams. From the article, "But before we go there and set up greenhouses, dance clubs, and falafel stands, let's make sure that, in some subtle form that could be harmed by the human hubbub, life does not already exist there."

Dave Brody, "Terraforming: Human Destiny or Hubris?", adAstra Online
http://www.space.com/adastra/adastra_terraforming_brody-1.html
Summarizes the debate between Chris McKay, astrogeophysicist at NASA Ames and Bob Zubrin, President of the Mars Society. Zubrin ranks as a high 3 on my scale. McKay, 2c.

"Ethics of terraforming", redcolony.com
http://www.redcolony.com/art.php?id=0107290
This article does a semi-decent job of presenting both sides given that redcolony.com is a rabidly pro-terraforming site.

"Ethics of terraforming", Wikipiedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethics_of_terraforming
Listed only because Wikipedia has an article on everything.

 

[Evo]

I moved the thread pending a moderation decision.

 

[spacester]

The views on this topic span a lot of ground. Here is how I see these views, from one extreme to another:

Nice post. I do not particularly like your scale however. It seems designed to support a Red position. There are a lot of options in the neighborhood of 3 and 4. Terraforming need not be presented as nearly the same as xenocide.

The reds will lose (yes, I read the KMS trilogy). They are in the minority and they always will be. Perhaps this ethical question ought not to be left to majority rule, but it likely will be and then the game will be over.

If there is even a game in the first place. This discussion is predicated on supposition, not evidence, and I for one don't like doing that. I think we've almost ruled out macro organisms on the surface, yes? And that currently it is a hostile environment even for those who evolved there, right?

So if there is life, it's deep. We will have to dig down to find it. If we go to enough places and dig down far enough, and turn up nothing, the game is over, right? How much do we need to dig up before we can proceed as if the place is as sterile as it looks?

What are the odds of deep life being macro life? Very low I'd say. Life may be ubiquitous on Earth but that would mean nothing to a sterile Mars, and based on all the actual evidence the only realistic hope for life on Mars is deep and microscopic. It will likely only exist in little micro environments and we will not be able to observe it without disturbing it.

So the moment of discovery will be the moment of contamination, or at least the point where we know how isolated it is from the surface environment. Either way its game over, Reds lose. If we have to go to that much trouble to get to the critters, we can carry out operations in the sterile surface environment without further messing with them.

Besides, exciting plot lines aside, terraforming is not a job for settlers. They are there to learn and adapt to the local environment. They should keep the hubris to a dull roar and make the general endeavor work. Once we know we can stay and what we're dealing with in terms of climate science, we can think about changing it.

I guess I'm a green when it comes to letting humans and their microbes interact with the environment on a limited basis, but a red when it comes to climate modification.

It would be really stupid for us to wait for a Martian beetle to walk in front of one of our cameras before setting up shop in person. The next rover should see any surface macro life if it is there to be seen. We don't need to wait any more after that to adopt an operating assumption for planning purposes that deep microscopic life is the only realistic scenario for Martian life.

 

[luma]

Mars is for the Martians and Earth is for Humans. The other animals are guests here.

Concern for speculative life on Mars from Humans is so noble. Earth should be the first grid we start this mission from the variety of smallest beetles to the singing whales. Yet Earth is abundant in life full of colours and driving the cycle of nature we rest on nonchalantly. Never stopped us trampling over the fine tuned ecosystems to crudely tear out that shiny piece of pretty metal.

And Mars is very big! Enough for two hosts lodging together.

 

[luma]

First off, the Mars Design Reference mission is not a colonization plan. This thread is about colonization. The Mars DRM is a plan to send a small number of astronauts to Mars and then return back to Earth after spending some time on Mars. Secondly, while defining/refining that Design Reference Mission is within NASA's budget, allocating money to implement those plans is not.

NASA uses design reference missions as the basis for costing a concept. Think about it this way: NASA (or any organization, for that matter) needs to have some idea regarding how much something will cost before approving and allocating monies for that activity. The Mars Design Reference Mission provides the basis for that costing exercise. Those missions are not within NASA's budget. The costs far exceed NASA's budget.

Colonisation, settling... Whatever you want to call it. Send a few people there regularly and it ends up becoming settled and then colonised.

Robert Zubrin says it's within NASA's current budget. How come you say it is not? Mars to stay is just Zubrin's plan but the astronauts don't come back. It's cheaper. I'd volunteer even if I knew I'd die after even a week. Don't care.

 

[D H]

Robert Zubrin says it's within NASA's current budget. How come you say it is not? Mars to stay is just Zubrin's plan but the astronauts don't come back. It's cheaper. I'd volunteer even if I knew I'd die after even a week. Don't care.

Yes, its vastly cheaper, maybe an order of magnitude cheaper. It's still outside of NASA's budget. The plan is also certifiably insane. Where would he get funding? No government agency, and no corporation, would be stupid enough to back such a plan. It is quite literally a suicide plan.

 

[Evo]

Over 100 posts and the arguments are circular. Closed.