Here.
Expensive, but not insurmountable. A no-brainer when you think of other things that government and private individuals spend their money on, and the depression that we're in right now.
And this is a conservative cost estimate for any reasonable accounting for a colonization initiative in that it does not take any Ken Arrow type insights into account.
You can't forget that beautiful little expression, bG-n, when you talk about these sorts of things!
Monday, January 28, 2013
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"A no-brainer when you think of other things that government and private individuals spend their money on..."
ReplyDeleteAnd here I thought that people value was subjective.
Anyway, the moon will be colonized first, then there will be a war of independence just like in _The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress_.
It is subjective.
DeleteThe fact that I have a subjective opinion on other peoples' subjective opinions doesn't change that!
I think there might be bases on the moon first, but the only redeeming feature of life on the moon is that it would be easier to get back to Earth. That's not a very good recipe for long-term colonization. Mars makes it harder to get back but you would probably be less inclined to want to, particularly when things really get going.
Well, I have no subjective desire to give you any money to fly to Mars.
DeleteAnd no, that's where they will grow the wheat that will be transported to the Earth via catapult (until the revolution starts). :)
Plus, you know, the moon is rich in helium 3.
DeleteRight, but there can be operations and bases there without a colony.
DeleteAlaska and Arctic Russia are resource rich too, but people prefer to live in Europe and California.
Send robots and mechanics to the moon. Send families and plants to Mars.
DeleteA lot of people actually live in Alaska and Arctic Russia - and that's basically the new frontier for all sorts of awesome material goodies. Plus, remember, wheat from the moon. :)
DeleteIn all seriousness, if you want a Mars colony you need a Moon colony first.
...I did not say it's empty did I? I said people should live on the mooon too!
DeleteCome on LSB - keep up!
I do not think there will ever be a notable Moon colony, although I could be wrong. There will be activity on the Moon for sure. I'm not convinced it's absolutely necessary before moving on Mars.
* "it" being Alaska and arctic Russia.
DeleteWell, a moon colony presumes more than mechanics (unless you just want a bunch of crazy people doing the work after a while). :P
DeleteWell that's the whole point - I don't think there should be a moon colony. I think we should have a base/outposts that people get shipped up to operate, like the space station. Nobody is going to prefer to live there relative to Mars.
DeleteIm going to put forward a devil's advocate. I do not think it is implausible to reply that ending world poverty is, from the moral point of view, a requirement lexically prior to spending on Mars colonization. Try to imagination a hypothetical situation in which you attempt to justify such spending to a person dying of starvation. I understand that we can do both. I'm just wondering how this all could work out.
ReplyDeleteSo like you say - we can do both - so I don't think I'd ever be in that position. But to get at your basic point, I'd say that colonizing the solar system and then the galaxy is an investment that will help to prevent the impoverished existence of millions, billions, trillions of humans in the future and provide an insurance policy for the weak and desperate on Earth if catastrophe were imminent in the future.
DeleteIt is the same reason, in other words, why we spend some resources on teaching a man how to fish rather than always investing all our resources in giving out fish. Ideally, of course, we'd give the man a fish dinner while he's going through the fishing training program.
The final section leads me to believe they are not taking into account any economies of scale you might get from sending say, 10 people at a time, instead of 1 at a time. I don't think anything less than 10 people would be viable. You need enough people so some amount of specialization can occur and also so that a nasty cold or similar bug doesn't wipe out the colony. I'll gladly dump libertarianism the day the US government makes a credible promise to colonize Mars. (OK, maybe not, but I'll be happy to make an exception for space exploration)
ReplyDeleteThere's a (partial) argument for colonizing the moon first in that it's sort of an extreme environment: it's airless and waterless, the temperature varies between searingly hot and ultra-cold, gravity is low, etc. It'd be a HARD place to make comfortable, in other words.
ReplyDeleteOn the flip side, there's a (partial) argument for its colonization in that it's close to earth in terms of travel time and radio/TV communication, so resupply and advice-giving are more feasible than with a Martian colony. These are huge advantages.
Summing up, Luna is a good test case. If we can successfully colonize the Moon (i.e., build reasonably self-supporting settlements in which humans can be conceived and born and live comfortable lives), odds are we'll develop tools and techniques that will let us colonize most of the solar system.
To infinity and beyond!
Very good points.
DeleteAnother good thing about colonizing the moon is that it can serve as a staging ground. Launching from the Moon is a lot cheaper than launching from Earth. If we can get some decent production capabilities on the Moon, we could then start launching to Mars at a fraction of the cost.
DeleteSo when I talk about "colonizing" I'm talking about a permanent settlement. I think it's very likely we'll have a constantly manned base on the Moon before a colony on Mars for all the reasons you state (although it might not be strictly necessary). But I find it harder to believe there will be permanent residents of the Moon in the way there will be permanent residents of Mars.
DeleteWell, if we use the Moon as a staging ground for the colonization of Mars, it will probably be a lot easier to actually colonize the place. If we need people to man factories, launch systems, accommodations for Mars colonists, mining and such, at some point, it will just be way cheaper to have the people on the Moon live there long enough that they won't want to return to Earth after adapting to the lower-gravity environment on the Moon. At that point, some more thorough colonization effort will be inevitable.
DeleteWell maybe ... I amuse myself now and then by following some blogs from people at the South Pole. So I can imagine various earth-based companies operating a lunar base by flying in replacement crews at periodic intervals. I think it'd be expensive but ... running a South Pole station with 3-4 dozen people all through the winter would probably have looked completely bonkers a century ago. So maybe.
ReplyDeleteOther hand, your proposed permanent Martian colony is unlikely to get a go-ahead until there's real evidence that babies can be brought to term and grow to maturity in a satisfactory condition, and that fertility is not eliminated by the rigors of the environment. And its much more likely that the necessary evidence will be produced on the moon than on Mars. Especially if (as seems likely) we colonize the moon 30-40 years before anyone but Apollo-style tourists get to Mars.