GameboyRMH wrote:
KyAllroad wrote:
Even if we discount any threat from cataclysmic disaster, with 7.X BILLION humans scrabbling around for a diminishing pool of resources. We either need to get busy reducing that number or figuring out a way to go get more stuff to satiate the ever growing hive of skin sacks cluttering up the landscape.
This is another thing that is a good long-term goal but we can't do anything about without Star Trek-level technology. Whether space colonies need literally everything or just the occasional small piece of high-tech equipment sent from Earth, if Earth goes down humanity goes down. Doesn't matter if we're just here or on every body in the solar system you can stick a tin can full of people on.
Asteroid defense is a good thing to work on *right now* with gains that could pay off immediately.
I agree that asteroid defense is a good thing to work on. it may not pay off for a very long time, but you sure as hell want to have it in case it's needed. i still disagree, however, that star trek tech is required to colonize another planet like mars. Early colonization/exploration of North America and the world by europeans happened with woefully inadequate technology. I dont just mean sailboats, they were crap sailboats. the pilgrims for example were supposed to use 2 ships, but one leaked so bad they had to cram into one, and they were quite late as far as settling went. their trip also took so long by modern standards that people today would never consider such a journey without a buffet, casino, and personal rooms on the tiny, leaking boat. If they sank in the Atlantic, survival would be just as hopeless as running out of rocket fuel. no radio, no coast guard choppers, not even frequent other boats crossing the ocean to happen upon them by chance. They would float until they died of drowning, sharks, exposure, none of which would get a spaceship. They would freeze or suffocate, but at least they might be able to radio home and say goodbye.
The colonists had a tough time when they arrived, too, though for different reasons. they had air, unlike mars, though mars has enough water to get plenty of oxygen. the technique is well understood and requires simple tech and a supply of electricity (solar panels, another known technology).
The ground was fertile, unlike mars, but the pilgrims for example were so incompetent that they started starving. Plowing, mono-culture, and field clearing are terribly inefficient when doing it by hand, but since that was the 'civilized' way to do it, they kept it up. they even had proven techniques on display (the Indians weren't starving) but in their stubbornness they ignored it. Well, not ignored it, but that's a whole different post. Mars One has known, working techniques for growing food entirely inside the settlement. Growlights, hydroponics. Ask all the closet-pot growers, it works. I dont have pot experience, but i have grown peppers and cucumbers under a growlight in a windowless basement, and i'm not even close to a competent farmer. If they can't get the farm going in the 2 years it takes to get a resupply, they will still have enough food supplies to survive.
Mars doesn't have natives to trade with, but there also aren't natives to shoot at you when you piss them off. there arent new diseases (that the rovers have found) to infect the people and hot conditions, which took out HALF of the Chesapeake bay settlers every summer. The temperatures get cold, but its much easier to deal with than temps in a vacuum. They wont have to make their own shelter either, the Mars One plan involves sending that early with some construction robots.
As for resupply, the american colonists needed that, too. There were self sufficient people already next door, but the colonists used steel and brass goods that had to be imported. for a VERY long time, like the first couple centuries. It didn't stop them or make them wait until they could fly like the birds to colonize the place.
Mars One doesn't plan on sending in families at first, it'll all be highly trained people selected to start the colony, and while they wont become self sufficient very quickly, it may not take until star trek tech becomes a reality. They may become self sustaining air-water-and-food-wise within a few years. The 'ark' kind of situation where they could survive if earth gets destroyed is a much longer range goal, though again not necessarily centuries. For that the place would have to be self sustaining, but also have some type of production (perhaps taking advantage of all of the iron and other stuff available) and contain enough people to have sufficient genetic diversity. You can contain pretty much all of the genetic diversity of the human species in 10,000 humans, but you could probably get away with much less to repopulate without too much inbreeding trouble. How much less? I don't know, I'm an archaeologist, not a bio-anthropologist or a geneticist.
TLDR cliffnotes:
One thing is for sure, it's never going to happen if we keep waiting for inter-stellar warp drive ships or some other way-future technology to make the trip just as easy as it is now to go from Europe to North America. It was a very long and risky journey for a very long time before it became easy and quick, and it didn't stop people from doing it by the thousands. I'll say again, the pool of people wanting to go is not a limiting factor, it's currently the LEAST limiting factor. The current problem is funding, which is why I doubt Mars One will ever get off the ground.
