Space Colonization

[Dagobahn Eagle]

Your thoughts on the colonization of strange new worlds.

 

Do you think the moon will be colonized (in the "near future")? If so, why?

 

Do you think that Mars will be colonized (in the "near future")? If so, why?

 

Do you think that other planes/systems than Mars will be colonized (in the "near future")? If so, why and how?

 

With "in the near future I mean before the year of 2100 CE.

 

1. Tricky question. This really depends on two things: What's your definition on a colony, and what's your guess on who is going to do this.
    
   If a research facility or a mine can be considered a colony, then I think this might happen within a houndred years. The way the space program has been going, I think this colony would be a joint venture by the American, European, and Asian nations (mostly Japan and China). I think that if people really start this, the moon will end up like a preserved "wildlife" preserve pretty much the same way as Antarctica.
    
   I don't think anyone would want to live on the moon, though.
    
   
2. Again, I don't think you'd want to live there. There might be research facilities and mining colonies which people stayed in long enough to be considered residents, though.
    
   Sure, "Mars Nations" or "Moon Nations" (like in Empire Earth, where Mars becomes populated and then becomes an independent nation) are cool enough in sci-fi movies, but in reality, it won't happen for several centuries yet. If ever.
    
   
3. No way. Simple as that:). There's just no reason to. Mars and the moon are closest, and I don't see why we would go to the other totally inhospitable worlds.
    
   When it comes to remote mining, though (for example mining asteroids in the Sol asteroid field), then I think it *might* be likely if a cost-efficient way is found to do this (meaning that profit from mining>cost of mining).
   

 

That's my opinions. Your turn:).

[ShockV1.89]

I can conceivably see the moon being used as a shipyard, due to it's very low gravity. People would have to live there to work there, and it would be too expensive to ship them up and down twice a day (or even once a month). So they'd likely bring their families, and things would progress from there.

[Eldritch]

Originally posted by Dagobahn Eagle

Do you think the moon will be colonized (in the "near future")? If so, why?

At the current progress rate of the federally funded space program, no. However, if the private sector gets involved, I believe we'll get there sooner than we think.

Do you think that Mars will be colonized (in the "near future")? If so, why?

Mars is a tricky one to answer. Most scientists seem to believe that life could've existed on Mars in some form or another at some point in the past (unlike the Moon). However, I don't think a colony will be established there until some way to terraform Mars and create some kind of atmosphere there is discovered. It's too long a trip, and the cost of building would be astronomical (pun intended). I think a lot of other things need to happen before we travel so far away from home.

Again, I expect our voyage there to be expedited greatly if the private sector gets involved. If space becomes a business, we'll progress faster than we have in the past.

Do you think that other planes/systems than Mars will be colonized (in the "near future")? If so, why and how?

I think the only other planet even worth considering is Venus - but unlike Mars, it would need terraforming (and to lose a lot of that CO2 gas) before we even think about a colony there. The surface temperature there is hotter than on Mercury, despite the fact that Mercury is much closer to the Sun. Throw in the sulphuric acid rain, and it definitely seals the deal for me - I wouldn't want to picnic there.

 

There's also a possibility that some of the larger moons (like the ones orbiting Jupiter) could one day have colonies. But I don't think that's a "near future" situation.

[Cosmos Jack]

I have to agree with "Eldritch" as far a privet and commercial development in space goes. The only reason there was a space race in the 60's was, because we had a enemy "USSR" that was trying to do it first. If the Russians had not launched sputnik we wouldn't have bothered.

 

Now there is no cold war enemies trying to beat us to Mars. The tax payers aren't behind the space program and NASA itself is half of what is was. There isn't a manned Martin mission tell the next decade. That could still fall through. I don't see them spending the money on it.

 

There is a international contest for privet companies and groups whoever makes it to space 1st get $10 million price. There are several companies doing this. It's a small step. But for us to have a future in space someone has to figure out a way to make more money going to space than they spend. The technology will follow. "Necessity is the mother of invention." We don't need faster rockets or colonies we don't go anywhere anymore to warrant the funds for the research that would make them a reality.

 

The Moon is reach in valuable ors and has large amount of water freeze dried in the soil. Its resources and low gravity would make it a ideal launching pad for early explorations and missions.

 

Mars is the closest thing to an Earth in the solar system besides the Earth. It's cold and freeze dried and the polar ice caps are made of mostly water the northern ice cap as large as Texas. I don't doubt that it has other resources we could benefit from during space travel. I can see Mars being a pit stop for a coloneal period in the solar system. The solar system as a hole has everything we need we just have to refine it and use it.

 

At the moment though I don't think we will see colonies on the moon for maybe 30 or 50 years if that. There is so much to worry about here on Earth that people are occupied with. Evan though all our eggs are in one basket. The Earth is like a shopping cart with a carton of eggs in it and it's rolling down a hill. It's just a matter of time before we hit another bump. We need to put our eggs in more than one cart. If we want to survive that is.

 

Sorry for the long and drown out garble and any errors....

[Eldritch]

Originally posted by Cosmos Jack

There is a international contest for privet companies and groups whoever makes it to space 1st get $10 million price. There are several companies doing this.

Yes, I had planned on mentioning that originally, but forgot. Since you reminded me though, here's the link to the X Prize website. It's a great source for information and if any of their prototypes turn out to be functional, it really could jumpstart and accelerate space exploration.

[Dagobahn Eagle]

I can conceivably see the moon being used as a shipyard, due to it's very low gravity. People would have to live there to work there, and it would be too expensive to ship them up and down twice a day (or even once a month). So they'd likely bring their families, and things would progress from there.

Interesting.

My dad works as an engineer for a Norwegian oil company, and he's stayed on the rigs several times.

 

Typically, workers stay on the rigs three weeks in a row and then have several weeks off, because, as you say, it'd be too expensive, and stressing for the workers, if they were to be shipped back and fourth daily.

 

Another example worth considering is the research facilities on the South Pole. This time I'll focus on the effects on isolation.

 

Typically, when people pick researches to be sent to the South Pole, they pick quiet people who can stand being alone for months with the same people and the same things to do. Who don't mind watching the same movie or reading the same book over and over, for example. This because prolonged isolation does something to your mind. It causes irritation, depression, homesickness, etc. There are several stories about, say, a cook who refused to make any food for a research facility or a mechanic who refused to tend to vital machinery such as heaters, often on the grounds of trivial remarks.

 

I think this would be a natural preventor of a colony on the Moon, although bringing your family would maybe help you a bit (if you had one, that is). It's already a preventor to research projects like those on the South Pole, and how long submarines and ships can stay out on the sea, etc.

 

If space becomes a business, we'll progress faster than we have in the past.

I agree. I think this would be the opposite of Star Trek, where space exploration happens as a non-profit project "for the better of society". Again, cost of exploration would have to be less than the profit from the exploration. Probably, in fact, far less.

[SkinWalker]

As I see it, the biggest two hurdles to overcome are the limitations of fuel/engine efficiencies and high-level proton and electron radiation.

 

Going to Mars entails a lengthy stay in space. Colonizing off-planet means the same. Without the protection that is afforded by Earth's electromagnetic field, astronauts and colonists would be exposed to high-level proton and electron radiation... not a big deal for astronauts going up for days or even months (i.e. Shuttle orbits or International Space Station missions). But the trip to Mars or the colonization of the Moon or an astroid is a different matter.

 

Also, in order to get to another celestial object, one has to have an efficient means to get to and from it. Current fuel costs limit Shuttle missions drastically and it wouldn't be difficult to imagine what the missions needed to ship materials and personnel to a colony would involve.

 

As to the challenge to private industry... the monetary compensation really isn't significant... at trip to Mars would cost in the excess of $60 billion to $100 billion.

[Cosmos Jack]

Originally posted by SkinWalker

As I see it, the biggest two hurdles to overcome are the limitations of fuel/engine efficiencies and high-level proton and electron radiation.

There are more efficient fuels and engines on the drawing boards. Just no money to funned the research. The high level radiation I think they came up with a plan for that a long time ago. I think it had something to do with special rooms in ships and such at which to weather the storm in.

 

Originally posted by SkinWalker

As to the challenge to private industry... the monetary compensation really isn't significant... at trip to Mars would cost in the excess of $60 billion to $100 billion.

It's cheaper now than it was in the 60's. Privet industry already launches satellites into space and soon they will put a manned craft into space. As things become more efficient it will get cheaper, but it takes time.

[Kurgan]

Probably some reforms are in order. I don't know how to solve the problems, but I think if we really wanted to, we could put something together in the next fifty years to get us settled on the moon or possibly mars.

 

It all depends on if we discover enough things valuable on Mars and recieve some big public desire to go there. Ditto for the moon.

 

Without a cold war to spur us on, many people see it as "too dangerous" or "solve the problems at home first."

 

As someone said before (I forget who sorry), in the long run, saving the human race from extinction via asteroid sounds like a good idea. We will probably never achieve total peace and harmony on this planet anyway. Might as well give ourselves and breathing room and not put all our eggs in one basket.

 

Besides, we'll probably only here for a few million years (if that) so why not branch out and achieve something we can be proud of in space?

 

We have to be realistic though, it won't be anything like Star Trek. There are no Vulcans to help us out, and no "warp drive." But there may be other ways to branch out at least into our own solar system, again, depending on if we discover valuable minerals or methods of setting up permanent residence (and solving the problems of zero g long term) outside earth. Sure it would be wonderful if some aliens dropped down and said "we will help you build a hyperdrive free of charge" but we might be waiting a looong time for that to happen (what with the distance to the nearest star from our own).

 

Atomic powered spacecraft is one option, but I think the public is too afraid of it that this might stop research. I hope it doesn't.

 

Besides, I'd much rather have research spent on atomic spacecraft than atomic weapons. On the one hand you have something that MIGHT kill us, on the other hand you have something with no other purpose THAN to kill us all. And if its unsafe now, how do we expect it to become safer, if we never try? Space might be a better place to test that kind of technology anyway.

 

We (US) said we could get to Mars by 2015. China said they could do it... this year? (did I hear that right?)

[Datheus]

All I'm gonna say on the subject is this...

 

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/3162129.stm

 

Russia... Right. They can barely afford to lauch a space shuttle and they plane to put a power plant on Mars? Sure.

[Homuncul]

We can actually make anything out of nothing, so what's your point?

[ShadowTemplar]

The way I see it, we have to make space travel cheap. All previous colonizations in human history have been driven by expanding populations and/or shrinking habitats. Always colonization has been a venue of 'steam control' for overpopulated areas by letting the lowest rungs of society emigrate en masse.

 

On Terra, however, this always results in tedious and ethically questionable (to say the least) cullings of local populations (and, arguably, the Western civilisations are at risk of being the next 'local populations'). Space provides limitless 'lebensraum' and ressources.

 

But all of this will have to be driven by people who have nothing to loose. By people who don't mind spending weeks on end in some stinking cargo hold, with some 1000 other people, not enough air to breathe, no personal hygieine, ect, ect.

 

Consider illegal immigrants: Often willing to pay more than 10k$ for a stinking, squalid, unhealthy space aboard a ship to Europe, just to be abused and mistreated by employers who are more than willing to exploit their status as illegals.

 

What if the ESA (European Space Agency) was able to set up a launch pad in Marocco, and offer journeys to the Moon and Mars for less than a tenth of what a smuggler would take, with ten times better travel accommodations than the smuggler, ten times better quality of life and projected income on arrival, than what could be expected in Spanish or Italian slums? You'd have to be fairly insane not to go for that rather than the smuggler's offer.

 

This would solve many different problems at once: It would drive expansion, from which all of Humanity would prosper, it would improve the conditions of a heckuvalot of people who would become illegal immigrants today, it would relieve the population pressure on overpopulated areas, and it would relieve the migration pressure on the Western world.

 

But the estimate above is based on the premises that:

 

a) There is a fully functional colony on arrival, where there are no employment problems, because it is continually expanding.

 

b) That the colony mentioned in a) is self-suffecient (or has a lifetime guarentee of supplies from Terra).

 

c) That the price of going there is low.

 

d) That going there is, at least, several times safer than going by boat to Europe.

 

e) That there are exportable goods that can be produced on the colony, so that working there is profitable.

 

a) through e) is not something that I'll see in my lifetime, I'll bet. Which is why I think that no politician will ever fund it, even though it would solve a lot of problems in the future if it was made to happen.