Why colonize Mars and not the Moon?

[russ_watters]

You may say that the existing global manufacturing base and supply chain on Earth is irrelevant, as everything on Mars can be built from scratch; but the global supply chain is essential for 21st century projects. Abu Dhabi, or any city on Earth, cannot be build without it. If Abu Dhabi had had to bootstrap itself and build all its own steel foundries and chemical plants first, and excavate its own raw materials from the ground before it could even start building, then it wouldn't and couldn't have been built.

The construction of a city like Adu Dhabi on Earth, without full access to our existing global manufacturing base, is virtually impossible.

Agreed. A similar argument is made for other space fantasy projects, like asteroid mining and lunar colonies. It is framed to sound like a chicken-or-the egg problem, when it is really just a chicken or the chicken problem: Building a city (or mining facility) from scratch on Mars or another body is really really hard, and saying it would get easier if you had all the manufacturing base locally is true...but just shifts the problem over a column. Building an industrial base on another world to use to manufacture the parts to build a city is itself a massive (and perhaps even bigger) project like building the colony.

And unlike building a fresh city in the middle of nowhere no Earth, we also have to invent a huge amount of new technology to make it happen. I assume we could, but whereas you can spend a hundred billion dollars and get a shiny new city in the desert, you'd need to spend a trillion dollars (or 10?) just to invent the technology before even starting the project itself!

[edit] For example, a single or small number of exploratory missions to Mars would probably cost at least a trillion dollars. These would do some preliminary research into whether or not it would be possible to farm on Mars. Assuming the results look promising, we'd spend another trillion dollars+ (and a decade or two) just on prototype/test farming operations, which would then tell us if it is feasible to farm on Mars, and how exactly we would do it. Then after that, we could start actually building farms (for trillions more).

 

[russ_watters]

What would be the benefits of not doing this?

I can think of several places I'd rather spend 10 trillion dollars. Like healthcare and my retirement.

 

[Stavros Kiri]

Instead of immigrating to Mars save that money they spend for destroying Earth ... to avoid it! ...

 

[Stavros Kiri]

Why not colonize Earth instead!
[...there's a thought! ... ... Easier too!]

 

[Stavros Kiri]

Earth would be a GREAT Place to start!

It is easier to save or rebuild Earth than to colonize Mars or the moon, for that matter ...

After all both Mars and the moon are just planetary or orbital corpse. Let's not make Earth one too! ...

 

[Stavros Kiri]

The problem with the saving Earth scenario is that we have a multitude of different Governments, Odds of getting everyone to agree 0%

Then how can they save us on Mars or the Moon? They have no logic. Better spend that big money in education to teach everyone logic, something that physicists and mathematicians should be fond of ...

 

[Stavros Kiri]

1+1 = 2, not 1 or else ... (end of story)

 

[Stavros Kiri]

Obviously if the USA was the one to establish Mars as a new colony we wouldn't have to change our philosophy on Gov't. Not a worldly government. What's the problem?

Money spent rarely actually goes to the cause. Very unfortunate

In such a case I would have to agree. But it would be a big responsibility ... either way. Saving humanity is not easy.

 

[mfb]

http://www.spacenewsmag.com/feature/why-nasa-is-hitching-a-ride-on-red-dragon/
"When NASA and SpaceX announced April 27 that they had modified an existing unfunded Space Act Agreement that involves the company’s "Red Dragon" Mars lander concept, it was, unsurprisingly, SpaceX that got all the attention. No company has ever flown a private Mars lander, and not even NASA has landed a spacecraft as large as SpaceX’s Dragon. Moreover, Red Dragon is the latest sign that SpaceX and its founder, Elon Musk, are serious about pursuing a long-term goal of Mars settlement".

No company has ever flown anything outside Earth orbit (apart from discarded rocket stages delivering government-built spacecraft s).

The 25 ton rocket is the Falcon 9 booster. The Dragon capsule is lighter (its mass is a few tons) and it has not landed propulsively yet, although I'm sure it will do so without problems - it is much easier to land than a Falcon 9 booster.

You really do believe that a few decades from now there will be a city on Mars that looks like Abu Dhabi? Extraordinary!

Of course not, and I never said that. You don't have to argue against straw men.
I just think the example of Abu Dhabi is funny because it is one of the good examples how humans go to new places that don't look welcoming - and then make them welcoming.

Just land on Mars? See what NASA says about landing on Mars: -
http://www.universetoday.com/7024/t...ge-payloads-to-the-surface-of-the-red-planet/
“Basically flying into the plume at supersonics speeds, the rocket plume is acting like a nose cone; a nose cone that’s moving around in front of you against very high dynamic pressure. Even though the atmospheric density is very low, because the velocity is so high, the forces are really huge.”
For large craft, it's not a solved problem.

For a 25 ton rocket, it is a solved problem. SpaceX can land their Falcon 9 boosters - they don't have a 100% success rate, but the reliability is going up quickly.

but whereas you can spend a hundred billion dollars and get a shiny new city in the desert, you'd need to spend a trillion dollars (or 10?) just to invent the technology before even starting the project itself!

A trillion dollars R&D that leads to several trillion dollars ROI for the economy. A new city is not R&D money, it is just more of existing things.

For example, a single or small number of exploratory missions to Mars would probably cost at least a trillion dollars.

Source? The highest (!) estimate I saw so far was 500 billions.
SpaceX estimates ~10 billions R&D and maybe a billion for the first mission. Even if the estimate is wrong by a factor 10 it is cheaper than the Apollo program.

 

[russ_watters]

Source? The highest (!) estimate I saw so far was 500 billions.

Based on typical cost overruns for such large projects, that 500 billion estimate is really anywhere between 500 billion and 5 trillion. See, the ISS for an example. Here is a 1998 article lamenting that the ISS would cost 3.6 billion more than the 17.4 billion estimate established in 1993.
http://articles.latimes.com/1998/feb/15/news/mn-20296
And it ended-up costing the USA about 40 billion to build. That doesn't include operations, doesn't include the canceled predecessor program Space Station Freedom and it doesn't include what our international partners paid for their shares.

One only has to apply that kind of cost overrun skepticism to current estimates to reach that figure, and there are some serious critics out there saying it:

We sent nine Apollo crews to the moon (six landed); if we send nine crews to Mars, the total bill would be in the neighborhood of $1.5 trillion. - See more at: http://spacenews.com/op-ed-mars-for-only-1-5-trillion/#sthash.umqtz4NW.dpuf

Given that there is no actual mission plan and we're talking about guesstimates, I'm guesstimating that the guesstimates are unreasonably low, and I think that is reasonable.

 

[rbelli1]

A significant portion of the cost of Mars missions will be directly applicable to Earth based space programs. If you reduce the cost of lifting to orbit for a Mars mission you don't just reduce the cost of a Mars vehicle you also reduce to cost of anything you may want in orbit. Research on food production on Mars is applicable to food production on marginal land on Earth. All medical and manufacturing technologies must be size and weight reduced to transport them to Mars. These advances may beneficial to Earth dwellers.

Many of the advances needed to put humans on other bodies in the solar system are rather domain specific but there will be benefits to those that stay behind. Which is nearly all of us. This round of space exploration will not be in response to an immediate existential-ish threat. We can do it not in a panic mode and factor in profit and other Earthly benefits. Colonizing LEO for the tourist industry might be a short term goal to stone step to the next destination.

BoB

 

[1oldman2]

Okay, okay, getting back to this threads original topic. It seems that in any long term plans, both the Moon as well as Mars are going to be "Colonized" to what ever state the current Technological levels allow at the time.
First off there's plenty of references to Musk and his Mars ambitions on the web so I won't spend too much time on SpaceX, Elon is serious about "Mars or bust" and he is developing the capital as well as the infrastructure needed to get started on what even he describes as "an ambitious undertaking"

http://www.universetoday.com/130086/nasa-estimates-spacex-2018-mars-mission-will-cost-300-million/
http://spacenews.com/new-documents-reveal-state-of-spacexs-finances/
"The documents also reveal that the company expects launch revenue to continue to grow, but be eclipsed by much faster growth in revenue from a planned constellation of broadband satellites.
That system is projected to generate more than $30 billion a year in revenue by 2025". [Wall Street Journal]

(It won't be happening in 2020 )
http://spacenews.com/nasa-exploring-additional-cooperation-with-spacexs-red-dragon-mission/
"In April, NASA and SpaceX announced they had revised an existing unfunded Space Act Agreement to focus on a planned 2018 Mars lander mission, using a version of the Dragon spacecraft SpaceX is developing to carry crews. Under that agreement, NASA will offer technical support to SpaceX in a number of areas, while SpaceX will provide NASA with data from the entry, descent and landing (EDL) phase of Red Dragon’s mission to support NASA’s planning for future Mars missions of its own".
"Access to that data remains NASA’s primary interest in Red Dragon. "The SpaceX collaboration really is an EDL demonstration for us," he said, as the spacecraft demonstrates a concept called supersonic retropropulsion that could enable the landing of spacecraft far heavier than possible with techniques demonstrated on previous missions, including the Mars Science Laboratory"

As far as NASA goes concerning Mars exploration, along with the Lander I mentioned in post #.257, You may find some interesting as well as relevant reading here. (once again, PDF is recommended)
https://ntrs.nasa.gov/search.jsp?R=20160011469&hterms=Mars+spacex+propulsive+landing&qs=Nm=123|Collection|NASA%20STI||17|Collection|NACA&Ntx=mode%20matchallpartial&Ntk=All&N=0&Ntt=Mars%20spacex%20propulsive%20landing
Abstract: "The Evolvable Mars Campaign presents a long term strategy for NASA's Journey to Mars within a capability driven framework. By comparing each element to a set of criteria, this paper reviews the potential of acquiring those capabilities using a strategy similar to the Commercial Orbital Transportation Services program. The paper presents the criteria, assesses the elements against those criteria, and then discusses the suitability of each element to being developed using this acquisition strategy. Throughout the campaign, certain capabilities are well suited to being developed in this manner while others are not. This assessment is a snapshot in time, and should be revisited as the campaign and/or commercial capabilities change. This paper will explore each of these elements in the campaign and discuss how the COTS development and acquisition strategy could or could not be applied to those elements. This assessment will be based on the services or functionality required in the campaign, and will use the best practices discussed above to create a case for or against a COTS-style acquisition strategy for each given element".

Then of course there's this take on Mars.
http://www.nature.com/news/nasa-rethinks-approach-to-mars-exploration-1.20758
Starting in the 2020s, scientists who participate in the agency’s Mars missions might no longer design and build their own highly specialized payloads to explore the red planet. Instead, planetary scientists could find themselves operating much as astronomers who use large telescopes do now: applying for time to use a spacecraft built with a generic suite of scientific instruments.

The proposed change is spurred by NASA’s waning influence at Mars. The agency’s long-running string of spacecraft is winding to a close, and international and commercial interests are on the rise. By the middle of the next decade, European, Chinese, Emirati and SpaceX missions are as likely to be at Mars as NASA is.

 

[Al_]

Research on food production on Mars is applicable to food production on marginal land on Earth.

What evidence do you have for this? There is already plenty of research into marginal land farming here on Earth. How can Mars make a difference? Unless, of course, you think we will just plonk down a working Mars food module on top of the marginal land?

 

[russ_watters]

What evidence do you have for this? There is already plenty of research into marginal land farming here on Earth. How can Mars make a difference? Unless, of course, you think we will just plonk down a working Mars food module on top of the marginal land?

Agreed. Even setting aside the fact that we can just build a test farm on marginal land here, so no need for the spin-off, the "marginal land" issues on Mars are different questions, with different answers:
-Soil composition and maintenance
-Air thickness, composition and maintenance
-Reduced sunlight and length of day, different mix of wavelengths
-Specific crop testing
-Impact of microbes or lack thereof

None of the answers to these questions will be directly applicable on earth.

I'm not a big fan of the spin-off tech argument because while the tech is great, most could have been developed much cheaper for other industries because in addition to the cost of development, they wouldn't have to spend an extra 10k a pound to test it in space.

 

[Al_]

A significant portion of the cost of Mars missions will be directly applicable to Earth based space programs. If you reduce the cost of lifting to orbit for a Mars mission you don't just reduce the cost of a Mars vehicle you also reduce to cost of anything you may want in orbit.

Pretty much all developments in access to space benefit all future space missions. Of course there's crossover. Therefore, Moon missions are just as beneficial.

To get back to question at the start of this thread, since we've found water on the Moon, it's possible to colonize the Moon.
http://www.space.com/7530-significant-amount-water-moon.html
And quicker, easier, safer, cheaper.
Quicker: A few days flight v. several months. And building up the numbers of people will faster.
Easier: Transport technology already exists and is proven.
Safer: Less radiation during the trip, and a quicker & simpler trip home in emergencies.
Cheaper: Less development of new technologies, less kit required, more things can be traded back to Earth.

 

[Al_]

And - easier in one more, really important way. Robots on the Moon can be driven from Earth, much more effectively than the snail's pace on Mars. So, prospecting, mining, construction, and even farming can be done ahead of time ready for the first people to arrive. And prospecting can continue while the colony grows, unhindered by the lack of manpower of the colony.

 

[Physics_Kid]

i did not read all the posts. but i thought there is substantial hypothesis that if humans can't take with them what we have here on Earth, it won't be possible to colonize someplace else. in essence, Earth is the only place where humans can live, unless that is, you find another Earth. seems prudent that before you attempt to colonize the other place, better have some good evidence that it can be done. wasn't BioSphere in AZ a failure?

 

[mfb]

Based on typical cost overruns for such large projects, that 500 billion estimate is really anywhere between 500 billion and 5 trillion.

Taking the most pessimistic estimate that takes cost overruns into account, and applying cost overruns to it again, sounds a bit pessimistic.

Even setting aside the fact that we can just build a test farm on marginal land here

But that is exactly what is done as part of spaceflight budgets.

Spin-offs are not always predictable. Consider solar cells, for example. The concept is more than 100 years old, but they were too ineffective and too expensive to be considered on Earth. Research got started for spaceflight - and made them so good that they got interesting for applications on Earth.

The Martian equator gets about as much sunlight as the equator on Earth (150-200 W/m²). The larger distance is canceled by the more transparent atmosphere and the lack of clouds.

wasn't BioSphere in AZ a failure?

It was discussed a few pages ago. Biosphere did not exchange any material with the outside world, while a colony on Mars (and to a lesser extent on Moon) would have access to oxygen, carbon and hydrogen from the outside. Colonies there also wouldn't try to reproduce tons of different environments, they would focus on what works best.

 

[rbelli1]

What evidence do you have for this?

If you spend the billions or possible trillions on the ecosystem and food production technology and systems for an off-world base I find it hard to believe that none of that will be useful here on Earth.

Selecting a narrow facet of that (the marginal land part) was probably not great for my point as I have no way of knowing the details of Mars mission research.

BoB

 

[Stavros Kiri]

Robert Zubrin's feedback on Elon Musk's ideas; Mars direct vs Space-X etc. :

 

[Phineas Far]

The moon has better tourist potential, because it is less expensive to get to. Colonists are tourists that don't come home. Somebody could take 6 weeks off from work and spend a month on the moon. Suppose that the government subsidizes Lunar tourism by paying 50 percent of the cost. That is better than paying 100 percent of the cost elsewhere. With the moon, you can have regularly scheduled flights once every 3 weeks, 4 weeks, 5 weeks, whatever you want. With Mars, flights would be once every 2 years. With monthly flights, you could keep your launch crew working full time. You could bring sick people home. It would be easier to ship 100 tons of supplies to the moon than Mars. We currently have nuclear submarines that can sustain life for months.

 

[pneguinapricotmelon]

Where are the thousands of bird species and countless millions of insects going to live on this Mars colony ?.

You have the Budget, Will and Technology to build a bunker and self-contained slime-farm on Mars, yet you can't solve the simplest social problem on Earth:
Exponential Human Population Growth.

You are happy to make a coffee-table out of carbon nano-tubes whilst trapped in a glass bubble on a hostile planet. But you sit by and watch Cedar-trees in the Amazon rain-forest be clear-felled by criminals.

This pointless distraction by Elon Musk is grotesquely offensive. We have such a beautiful Planet, and he is happy to entertain thoughts of of a forlorn existence in a sad dead wasteland. Instead he should devote all his time and effort to the improvement of humanity and the preservation of our planet. Travel to Mars would represent the ultimate failure of humanity.

 

[Stavros Kiri]

Where are the thousands of bird species and countless millions of insects going to live on this Mars colony ?.

Well potentially Mars would be terraformed, and it would be nice as a back-up plan, or as serving the expansion dream of humanity in space. But it would be a lot better investing that money on a class-M planet.
The only one around here, fortunately or unfortunately is earth! With all that money we could have made Earth a paradise!

 

[Corum10]

The main Extinction Event the human race faces is mass stupidity, the inability to see past the end of our noses, our inability to survive in harmony with other species and races, and the thought pattern that makes us believe we can persist regardless of the damage we do to our environment. I wonder if Mars could actually benefit from our arrival or would we destroy it also.

 

[Corum10]

Well,I think that this is linked with the Sun itself.
Without atmosphere,both Moon and Mars are vulnerable,but Mars is (at least) farther from the Sun,so it is more protected than the Moon.

The biggest problem is to find a method to protect against radiation which is stopped here on Earth by the magnetosphere and the atmosphere. Mars does not have much of an atmosphere and is void of a magnetosphere. So that really only leaves underground as an alternative for long term survival.

 

[Dr_Zinj]

Mars puts us that much closer to the asteroid belt. Escape velocity from the Martian surface is much lower than Earth's, and much less air resistance. Nothing humans do works very well in low to zero gravity; Mars solves that problem. There is a LOT of raw material in that belt that can be used for manufacturing, and requires very little fuel to de-orbit them and drop them toward Earth. Tectonic and hydrological forces on Mars may have done a good job of concentrating minerals into easily mined ores. The Moon has no such ore bodies.

Mars is not really terraformable. Too small and too low gravity means you can't keep a dense enough atmosphere without constantly re-supplying it. The Moon has even lower gravity, and virtually no atmosphere, breathable or otherwise. The Moon's sole advantage is it's the most easily accessible planetary body for us.

 

[Stavros Kiri]

So that really only leaves underground as an alternative for long term survival.

Or terraforming, if possible.

 

[Corum10]

Or terraforming, if possible.

Well, that is the whole point. Terra forming (that science we haven't figured out yet) would not be possible due to a few seemingly insurmountable problems. The first being the absence of a molten core (I'm pretty sure that's the case), the absence of sufficient gravity, the absolute absence of a magnetic field and worst of all the incredibly severe Martian weather.

 

[Corum10]

Well potentially Mars would be terraformed, and it would be nice as a back-up plan, or as serving the expansion dream of humanity in space. But it would be a lot better investing that money on a class-M planet.
The only one around here, fortunately or unfortunately is earth! With all that money we could have made Earth a paradise!

Well said, I also wish in vane that funds on Earth were spent in a more logical way. Having said that...Mars...of all the uninhabitable planets is still my favourite. I'd be well happy to live there underground like a little Martian mole.

 

[Corum10]

Where are the thousands of bird species and countless millions of insects going to live on this Mars colony ?.

You have the Budget, Will and Technology to build a bunker and self-contained slime-farm on Mars, yet you can't solve the simplest social problem on Earth:
Exponential Human Population Growth.

You are happy to make a coffee-table out of carbon nano-tubes whilst trapped in a glass bubble on a hostile planet. But you sit by and watch Cedar-trees in the Amazon rain-forest be clear-felled by criminals.

This pointless distraction by Elon Musk is grotesquely offensive. We have such a beautiful Planet, and he is happy to entertain thoughts of of a forlorn existence in a sad dead wasteland. Instead he should devote all his time and effort to the improvement of humanity and the preservation of our planet. Travel to Mars would represent the ultimate failure of humanity.

I do agree with you. However Elon Musk cannot be expected to repair all the damage caused by US...as a race. We ALL should dedicate ourselves to the preservation of our planet.