The fool's errand of martian colonization

submitted by casparvoneverecBig tiddy respecter from (self.debatealtright)

Elon Musk is an enigma. I’m not sure if he actually wants to go to mars or he’s just a front for DARPA. Mars is a complete fool’s errand. Why would you want a colony in the first place? A colony must:

  1. Be a net profit economically over time. (Dutch East Indies, British India)

  2. Must be a self sufficient land that can absorb your extra population and serve as an outpost for your civilization. (The US, Argentina, Australia)

  3. Provide some tangible benefit (The cape colony)

Mars provides none of them. By any object criteria its a resource sink and a waste of money. Mars is a freezing, barren desert with an average surface temperature of -81 degrees. It lacks a magnetic field and its surface bombarded with deadly cosmic radiation. It has no water on its surface and its soil is filled with perchlorates. Oh, and it barely has an atmosphere. What little atmoshpere it has is 95% CO2. All its water is also huddled at the poles in a giant frozen ocean.

Thus, it is impossible for it to ever be a self sustaining colony that can absorb earth’s extra population or be a new earth as America became a new Europe and trade partner.

Any martian colony would be permanently dependent on aid from Earth to survive. Aid that is extremely costly and resource intensive considering the immense distances and logistical huddles that come with space travel.

Even if you were to sink tens of trillions of dollars over decades, no colony on mars could ever be self sufficient.

It lacks surface water, so no industry. It lacks fossil fuels so no cheap energy. Its soil is filled with perchlorates so no agriculture. The only population it can ever have is a few thousand colonists huddled in underground bunkers, surviving on bare bones food grown on soil imported from Earth.

Plus, no one would even want to go there. A handful of ”I FUCKING LOVE SCIENCE” neckbeards from reddit might want to, but normal people wont’. I can’t imagine a young couple wanting to move there, on a planet where you can never walk outside without a protection suit, where you have eat potatoes for ever and where your bones would decay over time.

The only way to ever make it a real earth 2.0 is through terraforming. Yes, you could in theory bombard Mars with methane and ammonia rich asteroids to allow global warming, you could melt its ice with a space based magnifying glass, perhaps you could introduce genetically altered algae or nanomachines to give it an earth like atmosphere but…

There are two insurmountable barriers to terraforming mars: low gravity and lack of a magnetic field. Mars is much smaller than earth and thus its gravity is too weak. Even if you were to give it an atmosphere, it would just dissipate away over a few centuries.

Even more, its lack of a magnetic field means that people on its surface will always be subject to deadly cosmic radiation.

To date, no solution has been proposed for these two issues, not even theoretical ones.

At the end of the day, mars is just a dead end, a mirage.

It would be a far wiser venture to forgo mars, and instead, sue the billions to terraform parts of earth. Make deserts of Australia, China and central Asia green. That technology is already within out grasp and would actually provide a new habitat for people.

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[–]somewherenear 7 insightful - 1 fun7 insightful - 0 fun8 insightful - 1 fun -  (5 children)

Why do people climb mountains?

[–]Salos69000 6 insightful - 6 fun6 insightful - 5 fun7 insightful - 6 fun -  (3 children)

How?

[–][deleted]  (2 children)

[removed]

    [–]VraiBleuScots Protestant, Ulster Loyalist 6 insightful - 4 fun6 insightful - 3 fun7 insightful - 4 fun -  (0 children)

    God forbid salos has his proud name & reputation sullied... I’m disgusted.

    But how tho?

    [–]somewherenear 4 insightful - 3 fun4 insightful - 2 fun5 insightful - 3 fun -  (0 children)

    Shit, it's multiplied!

    [–]casparvoneverecBig tiddy respecter[S] 1 insightful - 2 fun1 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 2 fun -  (0 children)

    To take cool pics and slay pussy afterwards

    [–]EthnocratArcheofuturist 7 insightful - 1 fun7 insightful - 0 fun8 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

    Martian colonization is an expression of our Faustian spirit.

    [–]literalotherkinNorm MacDonald Nationalism 6 insightful - 1 fun6 insightful - 0 fun7 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

    I think nearly all of those problems can be overcome. We even have just with current technology the ability to artificially create a protective magnetic shield with a spacecraft that could protect Mars from the cosmic radiation and act much like our own magnetic field does. We also don't have a great idea of exactly what kind of mineral resources we might find under the martian surface.

    We're a long way away but from my reading nearly all of the problems you describe have solutions.

    Make deserts of Australia, China and central Asia green.

    My grandfather was a civil engineer who worked a lot in the hydro sector and had this grand plan to artificially create an inland sea in the Australian desert to do this very thing. Family legend has it that he even discussed it with government ministers.

    [–][deleted] 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

    inland sea in the Australian desert

    I'm sure if you threw enough time, money and resources at it, you could turn the Sahara back into the lush jungle it was in prehistoric days...which raises the question...why the hell would you? Any sort of benefit–cost analysis would never come anywhere close to justifying it.

    [–]aukofthecovenantWhite man with eyes 5 insightful - 1 fun5 insightful - 0 fun6 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

    You're too focused on colonization and on habitation by people on the surface, which I guess is because you're critiquing Elon Musk and considering only what would be achievable with today's technology. Mars could perfectly well be useful to a civilization that has already solved some of the problems of long-term spaceflight.

    To even send people to Mars in the first place we would need protection against cosmic radiation and the effects of weightlessness. But if we solve those problems well enough to create a long-term livable structure in space, it is straightforward to park such a structure in Martian orbit. You put people at Mars, not on Mars. Like you, I can't imagine a young couple wanting to live under Mars' surface forever, but I definitely can imagine a young couple wanting to live on a space station at Mars if the economic prospects are good. Not living at the bottom of the gravity well has real advantages (e.g. easier return to Earth), and teleoperation of robots from Mars orbit is already a serious proposal since it cuts out the time lag.

    As for what those economic prospects might be, Mars is thought to have industrially useful ores. Obviously nobody yet knows their concentration and distribution so mining viability is largely speculative at present. But it is easier to leave Mars gravity than Earth gravity, so the possibility exists to manufacture on Mars and ship the products where needed. This makes particular sense if the products are bound for further out in the solar system anyway. It also allows to reduce industrial despoiling of Earth, if you don't care that much about polluting Mars. The water supply problem might not be as severe as you suppose.

    tl;dr Martian surface for resources, not humans.

    [–]radicalcentristNational Centrism 3 insightful - 2 fun3 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 2 fun -  (2 children)

    Plus, no one would even want to go there. A handful of ”I FUCKING LOVE SCIENCE” neckbeards from reddit might want to, but normal people wont’. I can’t imagine a young couple wanting to move there, on a planet where you can never walk outside without a protection suit, where you have eat potatoes for ever and where your bones would decay over time.

    The value in colonizing land isn't actually living there, it's to claim real estate that goes up in value. A real life example of this is Canada. Why do houses there cost nearly $2 million despite the nation being so huge yet sparsely populated? Because foreign millionaires latched onto the idea they can hide their wealth in owning properties and watch it grow as demand begins to take over. If you walk around Toronto or Vancouver, almost half the buildings are owned by people who don't actually live there.

    https://www.vancouverisawesome.com/real-estate/condos-not-occupied-owners-vancouver-bc-1944166

    If the first person lands on Mars and proceeds to claim half the entire planet, they don't actually have to stay there to see their investment grow. They just need to wait long enough for more people to enter the same area and then start jacking up the prices to compensate.

    [–]casparvoneverecBig tiddy respecter[S] 2 insightful - 2 fun2 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 2 fun -  (1 child)

    There's no way that a planet would be allowed to become a real estate market. Governments with militaries would crush any such ambitions in the bud. It doesn't matter if Bezos has a trillion dollars. The US, Chinese and Russian governments have nukes and standing militaries. They'll drag his bald ass to a black site and reverse it.

    [–]radicalcentristNational Centrism 3 insightful - 2 fun3 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 2 fun -  (0 children)

    And this is when Star Wars begins to look non-fiction. All you need is a mafia-esque enterprise that can pass on favors in exchange for diverting attention away from yourself.

    https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Hutt_Space

    Hutt Space was an autonomous region of the galaxy on the border between the Mid Rim and the Outer Rim Territories that was located to the galactic east of the Core Worlds, and was under the control of the Hutt Clan. Largely noted as being a haven to the disreputable denizens of the galaxy, it managed to avoid outright Imperial control owing to its cooperation with Imperial Coruscant, however following the Battle of Yavin, it saw increasing attempts by the Empire to cut into its trade in an effort to decrease its independence.[11] Following the demise of the Hutt crime lord Jabba Desilijic Tiure, Hutt Space was embroiled in conflict as the Hutts attempted to carve up his territory.[12]

    Even in real life, corruption in the real estate market also exists and goes up to the highest government level.

    https://nationalpost.com/news/canada/alleged-mastermind-of-lavish-mansion-casino-raided-by-police-met-twice-with-prime-minister-justin-trudeau

    [–]fschmidt 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

    Elon Musk is a great salesman and a competent engineer, but he is a product of Silicon Valley and he believes in all the techno-bullshit. And that includes both Mars and Bitcoin.

    [–]casparvoneverecBig tiddy respecter[S] 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

    Yeah, as banal as it is, that's the likely explanation.

    [–]Girondin 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

    (1) Mars is net profitable:

    Mars is totally unmined so their is a lot of material to get, escape velocity is lower so exporting to earth, is cheaper. Valuable metals are abundant on Mars, and Deuterium is 5x more abundant (useful for nuclear fussion).

    Manufacturing on mars would be cheaper for some materials, some high-end materials are easier to make with a lower gravity.

    (2) Im not sure if it needs to be self-sufficent, many countries on earth are probably not self-sufficent (e.g singapore) and do pretty well. It will probably reduce our existential risk so it makes humanity in general more self-sufficent.

    (3) Tangible benefits are the cheaper products, and cheaper nuclear energy.

    I know Peter Theil is a big advocate of terraforming and seasteading so their are some rich people trying other futurist colonies ventures. I think comet mining needs more hype around it.

    [–]VraiBleuScots Protestant, Ulster Loyalist 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

    Saying these problems will ‘never’ be surmounted with such confidence seems strange to me, considering the near vertical trajectory of technological change we’ve experienced over the last 200 years alone.

    The only population it can ever have is a few thousand colonists huddled in underground bunkers, surviving on bare bones food grown on soil imported from Earth.

    Sounds like a good start.

    It would be a far wiser venture to forgo mars, and instead, sue the billions to terraform parts of earth. Make deserts of Australia, China and central Asia green.

    It doesn’t have to be one or the other, but this forgets perhaps the main advantage of colonising off planet, making sure we aren’t wiped off the face of existence given some disaster scenario here on Earth.

    I agree there might be easier places to start with than Mars though.

    [–]Blackbrownfreestuff 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

    Couple of ideas for martian independence

    1. You could grow crops with hydroponics instead of soil

    2. Lack of fossil fuels could be okay if you used an alternative energy source like nuclear or fusion or solar.

    [–]Fitter_HappierWhite Nationalist 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

    it's cool to send robots there, it's stupid to send humans except as a stunt. As a stunt, Hell, why not, as long as Red Bull et al pay for it.

    [–][deleted] 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

    The fact of the matter is, we are headed for an extinction level event in less than 30 years.

    The sun will emit a micro-nova, the magnetic field will disappear, then flip, and also the Earth's crust, which is much less fixed upon the mantle than one might think, can rotate 90 degrees. All these things have happened repeatedly over the eons, and there is much proof of this.

    There is a 12,000 year cycle of such events, with a 6,000 year half-cycle that has "only a flood" everywhere, submerging many places, etc.

    Anyway, by the best estimates, we are 12,800 years into the ±12,000 year cycle. Overdue. In case you were still wondering about the Maya calendar that ended in 2012, well... You know where my money is.

    Anyway, this is coming, this is inevitable. There is no known way that "civilization" such as it is, survives such an event. The super-rich and their families however, might be able to devise a plan. For example, set up a base on another planet in the solar system, with underground bunkers. Power this with enough juice, and you might even be able to concoct a magnetic field good enough to protect the inhabitants from cosmic rays once the natural magnetic fields go down.

    I know, this sounds utterly outlandish, even delirious. But that's only because of all the lies we've been fed about an almost monolithic planetary interior and utter silence on the electromagnetic reliance of planets upon their star, and the star's reliance on the galactic electromagnetic field. These things fluctuate and bring with them a wide array of phenomena which sound a bit loony until you've studied it.

    THIS GUY has done a large amount of multidisciplinary research and education on the topic: https://www.youtube.com/user/Suspicious0bservers

    Anyway, THAT is what I think Musk is about, and also Bill Gates with his "spray the atmosphere" bullshittery, looking for a completely different solution.

    [–]ifuckredditsnitches_Resident Pajeet 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

    The whole point of Martian colonization is to make trillions from mining the asteroid belt. Musk has openly spoken about this before I think.

    [–]casparvoneverecBig tiddy respecter[S] 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

    That's not colonization of Mars. That's asteroid mining. You don't even need to go to mars for that, you could mine asteroids right outside earth

    [–]MythOfPrivilege 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

    We're struggling to maintain the technlogical achievements of the previous century, we certainly aren't going to send to humans to mars, ever. Hell, we're not even serious about going back to the moon. And forget colonization. It's impossible for all of the reasons you mentioned.