Gardening On Mars

Calopteryx writes "Following Obama's announcement of the intention to send humans to Mars by the mid-2030s, New Scientist reports on plans to piece together the elements of a starter kit for the first colonists of the Red Planet: 'The creation of a human outpost on Mars is still some way off, but that hasn't stopped us planning the garden.'"

Comments

And

[Dunbal]

Tilapia nilotica will probably be the first interplanetary fish.

Re:And

[MozeeToby]

Wouldn't it be more efficient to rely on soy for protein? Even the most efficient methods of growing meat are always going to be less efficient than just eating the plants directly, and the continued survival of the worlds vegan population indicates that there are no major health problems with such a diet.

Re:And

[CannonballHead]

continued survival of the worlds vegan population indicates that there are no major health problems with such a diet.

Don't you have to take supplements to make up for things missing in the vegan diet? I have read this several times in nutrition books, based on studies. And some of them were major health problems, depending on which supplement was not taken... especially for pregnancy.

Re:And

[Lunix Nutcase]

and the continued survival of the worlds vegan population indicates that there are no major health problems with such a diet.

And they only do so from being able to take supplements for things they can't get reliably get from plant sources such as B12. One couple got a life sentence because a vegan diet they imposed on their baby ended up killing it due to their ignorance on such nutritional deficiencies that can happen from such a lifestyle.

Re:And

[DeadDecoy]

Hah, this reminds me of the firefly episode with a herd of cows on a spaceship. I wonder how NASA would handle that with no gravity. Lots of flying cow turds everywhere! At least there's little chance of a stampede.

Re:And

[Nadaka]

Right. Vegan diets are extremely unhealthy for pregnant women and young children, even leading to miscarriage, disfigurement or death. It is also moderately unhealthy for almost everyone compared to a balanced diet of home made food (meat, dairy, grain, vegetables, fresh if possible, otherwise with as little chemical preservatives as possible). The only thing you can compare a vegan diet to in a positive light is the modern diet of industrially prepared chemically infused meals and fast food.

Re:And

[Lunix Nutcase]

Yes, one would have to. This is why humans have always been omnivores. Even up to a few hundred years ago it would be been completely impractical to be a vegan due to the lack of supplements for essentials vitamins and minerals that one cannot reliably get from plant sources. Vitamin B12 deficiency is one of the leading issues with a poorly planned vegan diet and this vitamin was not even isolated until 1948. Before that point one was given liver extracts to treat things like pernicious anemia which results from B12 deficiency.

Re:And

[Anonymous Coward]

I agree that it is definitely more efficient. However, your argument that vegans "survive" is definitely not a good one. Smokers "survive" for quite a long time. That doesn't make smoking healthy.

Re:And

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, about there are only two ways that I know of that humans could be useful for other animals. The first one would be as food but humans are pretty useless that way, the other way is to be the carrier of animals to other planets.
The fish is not going to get there by itself and it's not going to get there unless we find it useful, for example as a food source.

Re:And

[elnyka]

Wouldn't it be more efficient to rely on soy for protein? Even the most efficient methods of growing meat are always going to be less efficient than just eating the plants directly, and the continued survival of the worlds vegan population indicates that there are no major health problems with such a diet.

Do you believe in unicorns too?

Re:And

[ChromeAeonium]

If it's protein you're concerned about, I'd say your best bet would be to skip both the animal and plant kingdoms entirely, animals especially would be far too inefficient, and use a spirulina genetically modified to produce all the proteins humans need. It's not that far fetched; there's already soy modified to produces omega-3. It probably wouldn't taste all that good, but since we're talking about being as efficient as possible...well, we aren't going to Mars for the local specialties. Not yet anyway.

Re:And

[Anonymous Coward]

It's harder for your body to turn plant into people than it is to turn animal into people. /dumbdown

More efficient in terms of what? As has been said, suppliments would be needed, bodily functions relating to/requiring the consuming of meat would degrade, and overall, one could argue health and morale would suffer.

The continued survival of the world's vegan population is as a result of the world gravitiating toward laws that artificially eliminate darwinism. ;)

Re:And

[CannonballHead]

Vitamin B12 deficiency is one of the leading issues with a poorly planned vegan diet

Yes, that's the one. Especially dangerous in pregnancy and causes, as the other replier mentioned, disfigurement, brain development issues, and fatalities.

Re:And

[crmarvin42]

Soy is an excellent plant source of protein. However, protein is not a single nutrient, but a collection of nutrients known as amino acids. Some amino acids can be synthesized by humans (non-essential or dispensible amino acids), others can be interconverted between each other, and others still have to be consumed intact because humans have innadequate ability to synthesize them (essential or indispensible amino acids). Generally, animal sources of protein have ratios of amino acids more in line with the human requirement (Egg being the gold standard).

one must also consider anti-nutritive factors in soy. Soy is the second most alergenic food to humans, and contains high concetrations of phytic acid. Phytic acid can reduce the digestibility not only of nutrients within the soy plant (P, Ca, Zn, Mn, et al), but also within other foods eaten with the soy.

Also, animal protein sources are much more dense. Fish contain a much higher percent protein in addition to having a better amino acid profile. Humans living on vegan diets usually take amino acid supplements because they cannot physically eat enough soy in a day to meet their dietary requirements for amino acids without feeling like they've eaten too much, if they can consume that much soy at all. A filet of fish goes a longer way toward meeting the nutritional requirement than an identical wieght of soy beans. If you want to isolate soy protein, then you need a lot of specialized equipment and some rather harsh chemicals to extract the protein whereas fish protein is simply extracted by mechanically scaling and gutting the fish.

Any potential Martian colonists will have a diet that bares little resemplence to the average American's diet now, but Veganisms is dependent upon modern infrastructure that would be difficult to replicate on Mars.

Re:And

[Anonymous Coward]

They could eat bugs for protein. And the bugs could live off waste plant matter. Insects are probably easier to care for and more resilient than animals anyways.

Re:And

[Ipeunipig]

WHAT?? Go to the Red Planet and not get to eat and Red Meat???

Re:And

[Hognoxious]

He said they continually survive. Odd, I thought new ones were born and old ones died - just like everyone else.

Re:And

[Anonymous Coward]

Solution:

2 to 4 heifers, LOTS of frozen embryos.

Better solution:

Don't take Cows. Take goats instead.
Reasons:
Goats dont produce sticky poop; they produce compact pellets.
Goats can ingest a wider assortment of vegetable matter than can cows. (goats can live off lichen)
Goats are more fecund than cows. (Can conceivably produce up to 4 kids per year, while a cow cannot.)
Goats are lighter than cows (Weight is a very large concern for long distance spaceflight.)

4 nanny goats + Lots of frozen embryos would be much less hassle than 4 heifers and lots of frozen embryos. Once a stable food supply is established, THEN a special shipment of bovine delights can be sent.

Re:And

[Nadaka]

Fish are remarkably easy to care for, but you may have a point about insects being easier.

Though most people I know are going to be very squeamish about eating bugs.

Re:And

[CannonballHead]

Soy is the second most alergenic food to humans

My wife is extremely allergic to soy. We have since found out that it is in everything from tea to salad dressing. And soybean oil is common, too, along with sunflower oil - which is also in almost everything... even vitamin E gel things.

You don't need to be allergic to much at all to basically eliminate almost all non-"single" food (i.e., where it's just exactly what it says: like "broccoli" or "beef")... i.e.: if you can't have sugar, dairy, gluten, and soy, it knocks out a whole lot of stuff. Even normal things like chips, tea, etc.

Re:And

[Explodicle]

If it's planned properly, you'll be fine on a vegan diet with no supplements. Pregnant women probably should take supplements but can bear healthy children without them, and I assume NASA would want to hire a world-class nutritionist for this project anyways.

Re:And

[srussia]

Right. Vegan diets are extremely unhealthy for pregnant women and young children, even leading to miscarriage, disfigurement or death.

Oh yeah? So how do you explain Vega becoming an important business centre, exporting Vegan tobacco, to boot?

Re:And

[Hognoxious]

It's harder for your body to turn plant into people than it is to turn animal into people. /dumbdown

More efficient in terms of what?

Energy conversion. It may be easier for your body to convert animal into people, but it requires an extra step - converting plants into animals.

As an approximation, the efficiency per step is around 10%. So if your land can grow enough wheat to feed 100 people on bread, it can grow enough wheat to feed enough cows to feed 10 people on beef. Were you to feed that beef to dogs and eat the dogs, you'd be lonely. And Korean, of course.

Re:And

[Explodicle]

The American Dietetic Association considers well-planned vegan diets "appropriate for all stages of the life cycle, including pregnancy and lactation," but recommends that vegan mothers supplement for iron, vitamin D, and vitamin B12.

- Veganism - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Re:And

[CannonballHead]

Uhhh. Just B12 alone, your link does not say that. It says this:

The Vegan Society and Vegan Outreach, among others, recommend that vegans either consistently eat foods fortified with B12 or take a B12 supplement.

"Fortified" would basically be putting the supplement into the food, manually, before eating it... e.g., flour can be "fortified." These foods don't naturally have enough.

So here again: "planned properly" == taking supplements, in some way.

"but can bear healthy children without them"

By accident or perhaps part of their past in which they ate animal products high in B12? It seems to me that all evidence suggests that unless your mother is taking B12 in some way, the child will be deficient. If the child is deficient, even if she doesn't die, HER child will be even MORE deficient. Either your definition of "healthy children" is strange, or your definition of "no supplements" is not really "no supplements." :)

That or I am totally missing something in my brief research in this. I have not seen any vegan-okay food that naturally has B12 worth any note.

Re:And

[Tumbleweed]

>> Wouldn't it be more efficient to rely on soy for protein? Even the most efficient methods of growing meat are always going to be less efficient than just eating the plants directly, and the continued survival of the worlds vegan population indicates that there are no major health problems with such a diet.

> Do you believe in unicorns too?

Oh, MAN, unicorn tastes great! There's nothing like some chicken fried unicorn with mashed potatoes and country gravy. And some edamame. And an extra large diet Coke.

Re:And

[Explodicle]

From YFA:

"No matter how many times they want to say, 'We're vegans, we're vegetarians,' that's not the issue in this case," said prosecutor Chuck Boring. "The child died because he was not fed. Period."

If mothers on this Martian base actually breastfeed their children instead of feeding them soy milk and apple juice (and follow the advice of a nutritionist) the kids will be fine. These two foolish parents would probably not pass the rigors of NASA's selection process.

Re:And

[Nadaka]

No, not really. Most people convert to veganism later in life after being omnivores through childhood and young adulthood. Most of them also either choose not to have children or have passed child rearing age when they change their diet as well.

Re:And

[kimvette]

It's also added to milk on occasion, and it's often used as the medium for carrying anatto color. It lurks in shampoos and body washes and so forth. On time I decided to take a bubble bath, was relaxing and within about 20 minutes my whole body started burning (think about the worst sunburn you've had - and imagine that over EVERYWHERE from the neck down - EVERYWHERE). Well I jumped out of the tub and drained it, took a very cold shower and downed some benedryl. Then, I checked the ingredients - sure enough, hydrolized soy protein and vegetable oil. Fun stuff. Soy is everywhere you look, and also everywhere you didn't think to look.

Oh by the way I found the best soy sauce substitute that tastes almost identical to soy sauce; coconut liquid aminos. The stuff is amazing. I just used it for a party this weekend and people could not tell the difference between that and soy sauce. Great stuff.

Re:And

[pz]

You forgot menstruating women. Getting sufficient iron from plant-only sources, while possible, is impractical because the concentrations are so low. According to a Caltech nutrition researcher (damn, where *is* that reference ...) a single serving of 4 oz of red meat per week, or one smallish hamburger, is sufficient to replace iron lost in the menses, whereas it would be physically difficult to eat enough spinach, a plant relatively high in iron, to do the same. It's all about eating blood to get the iron-laden haemoglobin, and red meat is red because it still has blood in it (while white meat is white because the blood has been drained). Pregnant women, infants, and children, who all have circulatory systems that are quite literally growing in volume, also need iron to make haemoglobin because their bodies are manufacturing blood. As has been pointed out elsewhere in this thread, an excellent way for humans to get complete balanced protein is by eating animal flesh; in a similar fashion, an excellent way for humans to get bioavailable iron is to eat blood, and the most socially acceptable way of doing that is to eat red meat.

Re:And

[Explodicle]

That's a very good point. For B12, the best option might be to provide the colonists with eggs, since producing them would require less space/energy than meat.

Re:And

[SteveFoerster]

Humans living on vegan diets usually take amino acid supplements because they cannot physically eat enough soy in a day to meet their dietary requirements for amino acids without feeling like they've eaten too much, if they can consume that much soy at all.

I've been vegan for years and never do this, and none of the vegans I know do either. There's a whole lot of misinformation floating around in this thread, as there always is whenever veganism gets discussed around here. The bottom line is that even if you're pregnant or lactating the only thing that's hard enough to get from a vegan diet that you eventually really need supplements is B12, although there are some things where supplements make things a lot easier, like iron and calcium.

Re:And

[Lunix Nutcase]

If it's planned properly, you'll be fine on a vegan diet with no supplements.

This isn't accurate. One either has to directly take supplements or eat fortified foods (which is food supplemented with vitamins and nutrients) or else you will get vitamin and mineral deficiencies. There is just no way around it. This is why veganism is only about 65 years old (not but a decade or so after treatments for diseases due to B12 deficiencies were discovered). If one were to have tried a strict vegan diet even in the early 1900s you would most likely die from the complications of these deficiencies.

Re:And

[Lunix Nutcase]

I was never trying to claim these parents were astronaut candidates. The point is that poorly planned vegan diets can cause serious complications or death (and not just to babies). Just eating soy isn't going to be enough for these Mars astronauts.

Re:And

[Explodicle]

Someone else beat you to it (above), I now agree that they'd need either a B12 supplement or eggs/dairy.

Re:And

[Lunix Nutcase]

He said they continually survive.

Only due to things like the isolation and artificial synthesizing of things like vitamin B12. There is a reason that the vegan movement is less than 65 years old. It would have been completely impractical for the vast, vast period of time that humans have existed. In any other time period, vegans would have died from things like pernicious anemia or other diseases related to B12, D, iron deficiencies.

Re:And

[Lunix Nutcase]

It's not just B12. Iron and Vitamin D deficiencies are also highly common. There are others, but these 3 are the major ones.

or eggs/dairy.

That would no longer be a vegan diet.

Re:And

[Lunix Nutcase]

And how much more energy efficient is it if you factor in the fact that you have to artificially synthesize things like B12 to fortify their foods with?

Re:And

[elrous0]

Sounds delicious.

Re:And

[CraftyJack]

...the continued survival of the worlds vegan population...

Based on their demographics, I'd say they either aren't surviving...or they just give up on it after a while.

Re:And

[Lunix Nutcase]

There's a whole lot of misinformation floating around in this thread, as there always is whenever veganism gets discussed around here.

Such as what exactly?

Re:And

[Hognoxious]

Are you proposing an entirely carnivorous diet for 2.4 micrograms per day?

Re:And

[Mindcontrolled]

Chicken... fried... unicorn? With country gravy? What is this? Unicorn, redneck-wannabe-style? Listen, here's the recipe for unicorn:
Shoot unicorn.
Rip out choice cuts.
Break off horn.
Skewer cuts on horn, roast over fire, preferably gasoline fueled.
While cuts are roasting, feast on unicorn's raw heart and liver.

Lord almighty, are there any real men left this day and age?

Re:And

[Gravitron 5000]

That's a very good point. For B12, the best option might be to provide the colonists with eggs, since producing them would require less space/energy than meat.

Producing eggs produces meat as a byproduct. Chickens' egg laying tapers off after 12 months or so, then you have a tasty chicken to dispose of.

Re:And

[phantomfive]

Humans living on vegan diets usually take amino acid supplements because they cannot physically eat enough soy in a day to meet their dietary requirements for amino acids without feeling like they've eaten too much, if they can consume that much soy at all.

This is true, I've tried. I did it using soy protein isolate, in powder form, so it was easier, and two or three scoops were enough to fill my protein need (works better than whey protein because it has all the essential amino acids: whey protein often lacks leucine). It works for a while, but soon you just feel you can't force any more down your throat. My theory is the phytic acid builds up in your body, and your body says, "No more!" or something like that, but before long you REALLY don't want to eat any more soy protein. I never had this experience with any other type of protein.

Re:And

[Hognoxious]

Why are you contradicting me? Can't you see I was quoting someone else - and ironically at that? Moron.

Re:And

[CannonballHead]

Well, then it's not vegan :D (how did we get on this has-to-be-vegan thing in the first place, I forgot...

chickens also provide you with fertilizer and pillows.

Re:And

[lemur3]

The American Dietetic Association considers well-planned vegan diets "appropriate for all stages of the life cycle, including pregnancy and lactation," but recommends that vegan mothers supplement for iron, vitamin D, and vitamin B12.

          - Veganism - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

that quote is wrong.. just look at the source at the bottom of the wiki page.

Craig, WJ; Mangels, AR; American Dietetic, Association (July 2009). "Position of the American Dietetic Association: vegetarian diets.". J Am Diet Assoc 109 (7): 1266–1282. doi:10.1016/j.jada.2009.05.027. PMID 19562864.

it says VEGETARIAN DIETS. not vegan.

someone is trying to create their own reality.

Re:And

[crmarvin42]

If that's true, then they've made a lot of progress in developing balanced vegan diets in the last 10 to 12 years. In the late 90's I was dating a vegan and she was on more than just B12, iron and Calcium. That doesn't change the general point that Veganism is dependent upon infrastructure. Soy needs to be processed quite heavily before it can be used as a sole source of protein. Aquaculture also requires infrastructure, but arguably less of it. I imagine that if they are trying to develop a self-sustaning colony, they'd use a combination of protein, energy, and vitamin sources.

Re:And

[lemur3]

If it's planned properly, you'll be fine on a vegan diet with no supplements. Pregnant women probably should take supplements but can bear healthy children without them, and I assume NASA would want to hire a world-class nutritionist for this project anyways.

It is too bad the source used multiple places on that page says nothing about a Vegan diet.

Craig, WJ; Mangels, AR; American Dietetic, Association (July 2009). "Position of the American Dietetic Association: vegetarian diets.". J Am Diet Assoc 109 (7): 1266–1282. doi:10.1016/j.jada.2009.05.027. PMID 19562864.

notice how it says: "Position of the American Dietetic Association: vegetarian diets." ...I think you might want to reconsider your research.

Re:And

[reverseengineer]

It's not blood that makes red meat red; it's the myoglobin concentration in the muscle, which in turn relates to that muscle's use of oxygen. Meat from adult mammalian tissues on average contains about ten times as much myoglobin as meat from poultry. In poultry, meat can be further differentiated into "light and dark" meat based on what part of the bird it comes from- muscles in the wings, thighs, and legs need more oxygen to sustain activity, have more myoglobin, and are darker- but still have less myoglobin than most beef.

Draining blood out of the meat isn't going to change its color; the myoglobin is within the muscle itself. The color of meat can be affected by the animal's age and diet however: veal, for instance, can be nearly white in color when taken from calves fed only on milk. Myoglobin, like its bloodborne relative hemoglobin, does contain iron, and does represent a major dietary source if you eat red meat.

Re:And

[SteveFoerster]

Such as what exactly?

• Vegan diets are extremely unhealthy for pregnant women and young children, even leading to miscarriage, disfigurement or death.
• Getting sufficient iron from plant-only sources, while possible, is impractical because the concentrations are so low.
• Most [vegans] also either choose not to have children or have passed child rearing age when they change their diet as well.
• The continued survival of the world's vegan population is as a result of the world gravitiating [sic] toward laws that artificially eliminate darwinism. ;)

Re:And

[crmarvin42]

Speaking as one who's masters research was based around phytic acid, your theory doesn't stand up. The problem with phytic acid is that it is not digestible. That means the ingested phytic acid doesn't get absorbed, and is voided in the feces. The anti-nutritive effect of phytic acid is due to it being the principal storage form of Phosphorus in plants (> 75% of Phosphorus in dehulled solvent-extracted soybean meal) and a result of it binding to other nutrients and dragging them out with the feces as well.

My guess (educated, but still a guess) would be that the refusal you experienced is due to high circulating levels of blood urea nitrogen. Amino acids absorbed in excess of what can be used must be degraded. Part of the degradation process results in urea production, and the higher the protein degradation rate the higher the urea synthesis rate. There may be a point at which the liver and kidneys get overtaxed in their effort to synthesize and excrete urea, which in turn could make you feel like your body is telling you "No more!" I don't know of any research along these lines though, so this is pure speculation.

Re:And

[Smauler]

Right. Vegan diets are extremely unhealthy for pregnant women and young children, even leading to miscarriage, disfigurement or death.

Not with supplements. It's only nutjob vegans who attempt it without supplements, the vast majority of vegans accept that a pure vegan diet is not healthy without dietary supplements. A vegan diet with supplements is just as healthy as a normal diet AFAIK.

Re:And

[EvilBudMan]

Yeah, pork phat berry berry good. Wabbit food berry berry bad.

Re:And

[crmarvin42]

I doubt this particular claim

It's also added to milk on occasion

. Consumers tend to get very upset about adulterated milk (rBST anyone?). Furthermore, the dairy industry is also very hostile toward the juice of the soy plant being called "milk" and marketed as a milk alternative. Technically "Soy Milk" is actually a juice. (only mammals produce milk and soy is not even an animal.) With that kind of background politics, I doubt that any milk producer is adding soy to liquid milk.

Re:And

[Cyberax]

"It's all about eating blood to get the iron-laden haemoglobin, and red meat is red because it still has blood in it (while white meat is white because the blood has been drained)"

That's fantastically incorrect. "Red meat" is read because of high content of myoglobin ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myoglobin ) - another oxygen-binding protein. It's found in muscle cells which do short bursts of work.

Also, vegan diets ARE possible. Iron is not a problem: http://www.vrg.org/nutrition/iron.htm

So stop spouting nonsense.

Re:And

[phantomfive]

Hmmmm interesting. So it's not the phytic acid.

I am not an expert, but I have experimented with different kinds of protein, and I haven't had the same problem with whey protein or protein isolated from eggs. I was eating around 50 grams of soy protein a day max. I experimented with whey protein up to 200 grams a day, and didn't have the same problem.

So I don't think it is a matter of urea nitrogen, unless there is something in soy protein that causes more of that to be created. If you have any other guesses, I would be interested in hearing them.

Re:And

[crmarvin42]

• Getting sufficient iron from plant-only sources, while possible, is impractical because the concentrations are so low.

I'm fairly sure this one is actually true for growing individuals. I'm a swine and poultry nutritionist and every practical ration (as opposed to a research ration) I've ever made or seen contains a trace mineral premix which, among other things, provides supplemental iron. Plants simply aren't a good source of iron, in part because of anti-nutrients like phytic acid which can chelate it during digestion and carry it out in the feces.

For adult individuals (ie not growing) the digestible iron in a vegan diet may not be deficient, but all the vegans I've ever met were on iron supplements. Doesn't make it impossible, but implies that it is difficult to be vegan without iron supplements.

Re:And

[Explodicle]

That would no longer be a vegan diet.

Yes, I know. In light of this evidence, I've changed my mind regarding vegans in space.

Re:And

[Explodicle]

Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying they should be vegan-ish because OMG CHEESE IS EVIL, I'm just arguing in behalf of simpler and less resource-intensive options.

Re:And

[Anonymous Coward]

Canned ? :)

Re:And

[Smauler]

Growing meat is _not_ necessarily less efficient than growing crops. Welsh lamb, for example - the sheep are often let loose on non-agricultural land, and require very little maintenance. You could not do anything with that land, in terms of growing crops, without massive innefficiencies. If we were to go to mars, man hours would be a very valuable resource, and managing crops in innapropriate terrain which livestock could easily graze seems a stupid waste of people's time.

Re:And

[Explodicle]

Well it's a chicken to dispose of, but it's certainly not tasty. Spent hen meat sucks. But after 12 months of mandatory vegetarianism I'm sure some people would be fighting over it. :-P

Re:And

[elrous0]

Yeah, but they're the biggest assholes in the mammal class.

Re:And

[d1r3lnd]

What you want is a closed loop. For hydroponic gardens, which is what you'd be using in space, tilapia are an excellent source of both protein and fertilizer. That's why tilapia are so often used in aquaculture - in an environment like a rice paddy, they are part of a symbiotic relationship.

Plus, it's a lot tastier than reconstituted soy mush.

Re:And

[Anonymous Coward]

Until we start hearing that most centenarians are vegans, they have no cred.
Most of them drink, smoke, eat bacon and actually enjoy life.

Re:And

[Explodicle]

Read the source, not just its title. On page 1269 they say the following:

Well-planned vegan, lacto-vegetarian, and lacto-ovo-vegetarian diets are appropriate for all stages of the life cycle, including pregnancy and lactation. Appropriately planned vegan, lacto-vegetarian, and lacto-ovo-vegetarian diets satisfy nutrient needs of infants, children, and adolescents and promote normal growth (49-51).

(Emphasis mine)

Re:And

[crmarvin42]

Whey and eggs are both sources of animal protein. Since both eggs and whey are intended as protein sources for growing animals (the developing chick and calf, respectively) it makes sense that they would have evolved to contain amino acid ratios that are close to ideal for the animal that is supposed to be consuming them. They are essentially designed to help a growing animal grow with as little nutritional waste as possible. Any nutrients going into whey or eggs that cannot be used, either because they are in excess of what can be used even under otherwise optimal conditions, or because other nutrients are deficient and thus limiting their use are wasted. Therefore, there would be strong evolutionary pressures to meet the ideal.

Obviously this is not perfect. Iron in pigs does not transfer efficiently across the placenta or the milk/blood barrier (similar to the blood brain barrier), which is why piglets are routinely given iron dextran injections shortly after birth. There is evidence in humans that Vitamin D does not transfer efficiently into milk, which is why our pediatrician advised that we give our daughter vitamin D drops to supplement my wife's breast milk. (However, each time we gave her the drop she got severe gastric upset so we don't actually give her the drops anymore and she seems to be doing fine. So I'm a little skeptical of that evidence.)

Plants on the other hand have had less evolutionary pressure to target the proteins within their own body at meeting the nutritional needs of another living being. Essentially, only since the advent of agriculture which is still fairly new when you think about the normal time scales of evolution.

Re:And

[TheNumberless]

that quote is wrong.. just look at the source at the bottom of the wiki page.

That is the title of the cited paper. Often, scholarly papers contain information beyond the content of the title. For example, following the provided link to the article reveals this in the first line of the abstract:

It is the position of the American Dietetic Association that appropriately planned vegetarian diets, including total vegetarian or vegan diets, are healthful, nutritionally adequate, and may provide health benefits in the prevention and treatment of certain diseases.

someone is trying to create their own reality.

Indeed.

Re:And

[Anonymous Coward]

Boy, I better watch out around cows and horses, who knows when they'll need some tasty human meat to supplement their diets.

Re:And

[TheNumberless]

Oh for god's sake. How can you use the same piece of evidence in two places without even reading the abstract of the paper?

Re:And

[Explodicle]

Please read this reply.

Re:And

[Nadaka]

Cows are fed meat to supplement their diets, but that has more to do with getting them bulked up as fast as possible or keeping them producing milk as long as possible instead of supporting their natural health.

In natural settings they are known to gnaw bones. There is also a community of wild asses on an island that are known to eat bird hatchlings.

Re:And

[petermgreen]

I'd think for a medium term base the most sensible thing to do would probablly be to grow some food locally but and to bring those pesky vitamins and minerals from earth in concentrated form.

Re:And

[petermgreen]

I'd think it depends which dairy industry.

If there are dairy farmers who will stoop as low as adding melamine I'd think there would be ones who would stoop to adding soya if the price was right.

Re:And

[petermgreen]

Realistically though we aren't going to be growing anything or grazing any animals outdoors on mars. The choice is between indoor production (where space is at a premium) and importing food from earth so techniques for extracting a little value from otherwise useless land need not apply.

Re:And

[Anonymous Coward]

the world's vegan population continues to exist due solely to their 'protected species' status with governments.

Re:And

[CannonballHead]

I agree, growing food does seem to be less resource-intensive. As far as human sustainability, though, one would need more. I guess a Giant Bottle of B12 (tm) would work for the time being.

Re:And

[Khyber]

"Getting sufficient iron from plant-only sources, while possible, is impractical because the concentrations are so low"

Quit eating lettuce. Spinach, Sheep's Quarter, Kale, and much more are just LOADED with iron and other minerals. Most typical lettuces are wasteful water and energy-wise in growth, and a nutritional waste during eating, plus usually a waste of calories. There are far healthier alternatives than the typical easily-grown stuff you find in the supermarkets.

Re:And

[Kell Bengal]

Too right. That's all that stops me from eating them.

Re:And

[Khyber]

"A vegan diet with supplements is just as healthy as a normal diet AFAIK."

Tell that to my friend who is on a Vegan diet with full supplements and is slowly wasting away. It's sad she won't listen, she's gone from 5'8" 160 (quite healthy and she had great muscle tone) to being about 90 pounds and looking like she's been on a crack binge. All this despite a change in exercise and diet and following the doctor's advice.

Re:And

[Khyber]

"there's already soy modified to produces omega-3."

And if I recall correctly, after three generations of hamsters being fed on that modified soy, they were 100% incapable of reproducing.

No thanks.

Re:And

[crmarvin42]

AFAIK, the only way that melamine has found its way into milk is through tainted feed purchased from China. I don't know of any reports that Farmers were adulterating their milk with melamine. All the dairy farmers I knew were horrified that melamine was making into their product.

Unless you can provide documentation that a dairy producer was caught intentionally adding melamine to their milk I'll have to accuse you of FUD. Furthermore, if there has been a case that I am unaware of, I'll have to accuse you of extrapolation unless you can provide evidence that it was more than an isolated incident (one farm does not a trend make).

The reason that melamine was being added to feed in China was to increase the Crude Protein value (essentially the Nitrogen concentration, which is high in melamine) and thus the sale price. Farmers in the US bought the high crude protein feed thinking that it was high quality feed. They only later discovered that they had been purchasing poor quality feed containing melamine and were outraged by the deception.

The Nitrogen in melamine is not available as a source of protein, so they were getting less than they paid for, which resulted in them unintentionally feeding their animals protein deficient diets. This kind of nutritional deficiency has all sorts of repercussions as far as animal growth, production, long term viability, etc. that make it unlikely any farmer would intentionally feed melamine tainted feed to their animals.

And in closing, there is only one dairy industry in the US. There are multiple markets to which milk might end up (Fluid milk, cheese, butter, dried milk, etc.), but they all pull from the same pool of milk. I know this because I worked on several dairy's in MA and CT while an undergrad and even visited the Agrimark Balancing Plant in Springfield, MA. It is part of a Regional Co-operative that helps diary farmers efficiently sell their milk to the various end users. Trucks are routed to local plants for bottling, ice cream production, etc. and any milk not sold off goes to a balancing plant. Milk from one dairy might end up in 1 gallon jugs one day, in ice cream the next, and cheese on another.

The Plant in Springfield makes butter and dried milk which both can be stored for extended periods of time. This helps keep the price of milk up (absorbing excess supply in periods of low demand). Not only does the milk from one farm end up in many different products, Many different brands are often manufactured in the same plants. The Springfield plant manufactured butter is sold under every label except Land O'Lakes (or was in 2002) and Land O'Lakes simply uses a different balancing plant somewhere else. It's safe to say that the store brand butter in just about any store in New England came off the same production line as butter sold under any other label (so buy the cheap stuff and save some money).

Re:And

[Khyber]

"Vegan diets are extremely unhealthy for pregnant women and young children, even leading to miscarriage, disfigurement or death."

Excuse me, there was an actual TRIAL against a vegan couple who essentially nutritionally starved their child on soy milk and apple sauce. You want to repeat that nonsense?

"Getting sufficient iron from plant-only sources, while possible, is impractical because the concentrations are so low."

This is actually true in the case of most supermarket foods, and our food's nutritional value has STEADILY been decreasing over the past 50+ years according to the USDA.

"Most [vegans] also either choose not to have children or have passed child rearing age when they change their diet as well."

Now this one I can almost certainly state is misinformation, you are correct.

"The continued survival of the world's vegan population is as a result of the world gravitiating [sic] toward laws that artificially eliminate darwinism. ;)"

Yea, that's nonsense too. The survival of the vegan population is going to be dependent upon tons of supplements in the future as our food quality continues to decline and GM foods potentially start screwing with our fertility rates.

Re:And

[Tejin]

You know what it reminds me of? Tasty Wheat. Did you ever eat Tasty Wheat, Neo?

Re:And

[Khyber]

Not even close. The biggest assholes in the mammal class are primates.

Goats will just butt you and piss all over your stuff and eat it.

Talk to any zookeeper and you'll hear the exact same story.

Re:And

[vikingpower]

Although a meat-eater, I once followed - by circumstances - a vegan-eating-only diet, for more than a year, while doing physically hard work. I never felt as healthy as during that period: my muscle volume increased, heart beat went down, my skin became better.

Re:And

[mi]

And if I recall correctly, after three generations of hamsters being fed on that modified soy, they were 100% incapable of reproducing.

{Citation needed}

That said, I imagine, anything fed only by a single kind of plant for 3 generations would be incapable of reproducing... Even koalas eat things other than eucalyptus. Not because anything is wrong with the food, but because there should be different foods to provide different nutrients.

Re:And

[Gilmoure]

China seizes more melamine-tainted milk powder

(Reuters) - Chinese inspectors tracing new cases of contaminated milk have shut dairy firms in the northwest and seized 72 metric tons of milk powder tainted with melamine, an industrial compound that killed at least six children in 2008.

Re:And

[ChromeAeonium]

Wow, that's news to me. I don't suppose you have a robust, repeated, peer reviewed, double blind, controlled study to back that up, preferably one endorsed by a reputable organization like the WHO, CDC, FDA, USDA, NIH, ACS, ect? As far as I know, no one has started complaining about that particular line of GMO, although since anti-GE folks whine about all of them, you can count on bitching about this one too. The last study to spread around the intertubes about corn and organ damage that made it to /. was absolute bullshit. Just a tip from someone who follows the field of plant development and genetic engineering: those studies come and go. Just like the studies proving vaccines cause autism, the ones proving homeopathy works, the ones proving 9/11 was an inside job, and the ones disproving evolution. They make their rounds, then fade away until a new one comes along. Not a single one has stuck, not a single one is accepted by the scientific community, and certainty no professional horticulturist I've ever met has found them worthy. What should that tell you (and please don't say giant corporate conspiracy)?

Re:And

[rts008]

Successful marketing.

Re:And

[Khyber]

Citation provided:

Here you go. This is a *THIRD* repeat with nearly the exact same results.

Re:And

[Khyber]

In fact, I do, and it's the third such test conducted.

This is the most recent one, done in Russia. Austria and France made similar discoveries with other GM food products as well.

As a man in the Horticultural business, it wouldn't be good of me to not keep abreast of all the changes. Even the slightest GM change could make me force a light panel redesign to match that new strain's photosynthetic needs.

Re:And

[v1]

And if I recall correctly, after three generations of hamsters being fed on that modified soy, they were 100% incapable of reproducing.

ya but what about the fourth generation huh?

Re:And

[Anonymous Coward]

Tilapia nilotica will probably be the first interplanetary fish.

Wouldn't it be more efficient to rely on soy for protein? Even the most efficient methods of growing meat are always going to be less efficient than just eating the plants directly, and the continued survival of the worlds vegan population indicates that there are no major health problems with such a diet.

Well the whole discussion sort of went sideways into vegetarianism/veganism after your comment but I'll address the tilapia thing.

I say it is likely that any extended space mission will employ aquaculture utilizing algae and aquatic plants for a portion of the C02/O2 cycle as well as a portion of waste processing. I'd further say a stock of fish that can provide a source of protein for humans would probably increase the efficiency of the system as a whole.

Why?

The algae and plants (plant materials) used in this system will not live forever and will have to be dealt with after they die and become plant waste. Tilapia of various species eat plankton, algae, aquatic plants. Using a protein packed, if not exactly tasty, biological system to deal with a portion of the plant material before it becomes plant waste would almost certainly be more efficient than any mechanical process humans could devise to deal with the plant waste.

The fish of course could not be allowed to consume all of the algae and plankton so in the end there would still be some remaining plant material waste to be dealt with by other means, but overall, having fish that process part of the plant material before the plant material becomes waste would reduce the amount of plant waste to be dealt with.

Plant waste from this system would almost certainly wind up being used as fertilizer/organic material to be used for non-aquatic plants. Come to think of it leftover fish bits would probably end up serving the same purpose.

The whole thing would end up as a intricate balancing act. I'm betting that fish would be a part of it for the above reasons (plant processing and protein feedstock for humans).

algae/aquatic plants -> fish
dead algae/aquatic plants -> fertilizer/organic materials -> non-aquatic plants
fish -> humans
fish bits -> fertilizer/organic materials -> non-aquatic plants
non-aquatic plants -> humans
humans -> waste -> algae/aquatic plants

Re:And

[Anonymous Coward]

Try drinking down spirulina powder. Drinking raw eggs is easy/a pleasure in comparison. I could not do it.

Re:And

[ChromeAeonium]

I already saw that. I wasn't impressed enough to even remember it. Considering that A) wasn't long ago that the Russian Ministry of Health was blaming swine flu on GMOs B) that the vast body of current evidence says GMOs are, in general, safe, C) we've been eating GMOs for years and there has never once been a single human health problem linked conclusively to GMOs, and D) they were, as usual, unable to find a causative agent or a chemical pathway for the creation of said agent for these problems (nope, just happens cause their genetically modified by man. A billion years of mutations and natural foreign viral DNA insertions is dandy, but insert one single gene in a lab and it's deadly. It can be done.), color me skeptical until I see more details (I can't find anything about their methodology of the line of GE soy they used) or preferably, someone a bit more high profile doing it.

Either way, one study vs the whole of science...it might be accurate for whatever line they used, it isn't impossible, but I'm doubtful. Here's a whole bunch of studies proving homeopathy works; do you, in light of the whole of scientific opinion, question those studies, all of them, and have skeptical suspicions, or do you accept that massively diluted stuff that's really just water is an effective way of treating disease? Same thing here. Ok, there' s yet another study 'proving' that GMOs are going to kill you. So what? That doesn't amount to jack, at least not yet, and the burden of proof rests on them to prove their findings to the world, not for someone to prove them wrong, and I'm not going to assume they're right until poo-pooed by various regulation agencies (like what happened with the French corn study). Remember the last time a big scare story broke? Bloke by the name of Andrew Wakefield had a study too, and tons of people believed it without waiting for the scientific community to confirm his findings. Remember how that one worked out?

I'm not trying to accuse you of crankery here by mentioning the homeopaths and the anti-vaxxers, but I point those out to draw the similarities between alternative medicine promoters & vaccine denialists and genetic engineering denialists, and to say that patient skepticism is a virtue.

Re:And

[SteveFoerster]

Excuse me, there was an actual TRIAL against a vegan couple who essentially nutritionally starved their child on soy milk and apple sauce. You want to repeat that nonsense?

If you know enough to mention that case, surely you also know enough about it to understand that it has nothing to do with an even halfway normal vegan diet, even one for infants. The way those stupid people starved their kid to death wasn't a vegan issue -- and even the prosecutor said so.

I mean, if they'd starved their kid to death on skim milk from cows, and I said, "See? Dairy kills kids!" you'd call bullshit and I'd deserve it.

Re:And

[manicmike66]

Damn, that's a good wikipedia entry! Very thought provoking, and in a good way.

Re:And

[mi]

... ruvr.ru

Sorry. I will not believe a Russian institution on anything, that harms a Western company.

Even if we put malice aside, it is all too likely, that someone was simply stealing the beans, feeding the animals who-knows-what instead. It may be hard for Westerners to believe, but in Russia that's entirely possible.

Re:And

[Anonymous Coward]

Why not eat mangoes for the iron part? Mangoes are quite rich in iron content.

Re:And

[Anonymous Coward]

Getting sufficient iron from plant-only sources, while possible, is impractical because the concentrations are so low.

You may keep on spreading those blatant lies as much as you wish, but it won't make it any more true. Iron is absolutely no problem for a vegetarian or even a vegan (there's really not much difference from the iron-intake point of view) who knows his/her stuff. Red meat has much lower iron content than many iron-rich plant foods (lentils, soy, wheat, sesame seeds, etc.) and most plant based foods contain small amounts of iron (all of which together becomes a significant amount).

Spinach, which you use as an example, does have a "relatively high" iron content (but a lot lower than the examples I gave above), but is not a good source of iron, because it contains oxalate, which binds to the iron and prevents the body from absorbing it.

For adults, the RDA for iron varies between 8mg (men) and 27mg (pregnant women), and that 8mg in particular is really easy to get from plant based foods; just 100g of lentils gives you about that much, while only containing about 350kcal. Some time ago, I kept a pretty strict food diary for a few weeks (I'm a vegetarian) and my average daily iron intake was 18.2mg. And that figure doesn't even include everything I ate, because I couldn't find reliable figures for the iron content for many things -- so the real value would have been even higher. I could easily go much higher without increasing my calorie intake (about 2150kcal/day average for that diary period), if I just made an effort, but as that 18.2mg is already more than twice my RDA of 8mg (and even slightly above the RDA of menstruating women, 18mg), there's little point. Besides, eating too much iron is not healthy either.

Re:And

[vegiVamp]

So what you're trying to tell me is that sticking to a badly balanced diet is *gasp* bad for me ?

Have another McFat.

Re:And

[vegiVamp]

I suggest blaming the ignorance, not the food. Raising a child on McBKFC is eventually gonna kill it, too, even though it has meat, veg, grain and dairy.

Re:And

[vegiVamp]

"Informative" ? Talk about woosh.

Re:And

[flyingfsck]

Uhmm, I belive Omega-3 refers to a fat. What has that to do with your protein story?

Re:And

[crmarvin42]

That is the Chinese Dairy Industry, and I expect that the melamine probably got into the milk powder there the same way that it got into the US milk and pet food supply. Chinese grain farmers added it to their grain to increase it's sale price at market (increased Crude Protein) and the cows eating the grain produced melamine tainted milk.

Re:And

[Lunix Nutcase]

No, I'm saying it's disingenuous to say the diet is more energy efficient when you ignore the fact that vegans have to eat fortified foods or take supplements and such synthesizing of these vitamins and minerals costs energy to do.

Re:And

[bcrowell]

Soy is an excellent plant source of protein. However, protein is not a single nutrient, but a collection of nutrients known as amino acids. Some amino acids can be synthesized by humans (non-essential or dispensible amino acids), others can be interconverted between each other, and others still have to be consumed intact because humans have innadequate ability to synthesize them (essential or indispensible amino acids). Generally, animal sources of protein have ratios of amino acids more in line with the human requirement (Egg being the gold standard).

There used to be a widespread belief that vegetarians should eat complementary proteins in order to get enough protein in their diets. This turned out to be based on bad science. It is certainly easier to get enough protein in a vegetarian diet if you eat eggs and dairy products, but basically any vegetarian diet that includes a wide variety of plant foods will provide enough protein. The typical US diet contains much, much more protein than the body actually needs. More info here.

Any potential Martian colonists will have a diet that bares little resemplence to the average American's diet now, but Veganisms is dependent upon modern infrastructure that would be difficult to replicate on Mars.

I'm skeptical of this claim. We've seen claims upthread that, for example, lack of vitamin B12 would be a big issue. The recommended daily value of vitamin B12 is five micrograms. Let's say we have a colony with 1000 people, and they need to survive for 100 years. The total amount of vitamin B12 they'll need is about 4 kg. That's for the entire group, for 100 years. This is a negligible amount of mass compared to the total amount that would have to be brought from earth to set up such a colony.

Non-vegetarians tend to have exaggerated fears of the things that would happen to them if they didn't eat meat. Most people who have lived since the invention of agriculture have eaten a negligible amount of meat. Yes, many of them had dietary-deficiency diseases, but those diseases had nothing to do with lack of meat. They had to do with lack of things like fruit and vegetables.

Re:And

[crmarvin42]

The typical US diet contains much, much more protein than the body actually needs.

No argument here, but I expect (and I could be wrong) that colonists on Mars would have a very physically demanding schedule. That would increase their protein requirement. Physical strain increases muscle damage, and basal muscle degradation. Some of the amino acids liberated thus can be recycled, but others cannot. Therefore increased levels of dietary protein must be consumed in order to offset the increased rate of muscle turnover.

The total amount of vitamin B12 they'll need is about 4 kg. That's for the entire group, for 100 years.

You are making alot of unfounded assumptions here. First, the shelf life of water soluble vitamins like B12 is pretty short. There is no way that 100 year old B12 will still be any good.

Then there is getting enough without getting too much and wasting it. Water soluble vitamins generally speaking are not stored in the body, and any excess is excreted. Therefore any misalignment in dose will simply go to waste. It would make more sense to bring along a set up to grow yeast, which is the main source of B-vitamins for supplements now. It could be a fairly small set up and as long as their is enough biomass to keep the culture growing, they could probably meet their entire B-vitamin requirement at one shot (and make martian hooch at the same time).

Most people who have lived since the invention of agriculture have eaten a negligible amount of meat. Yes, many of them had dietary-deficiency diseases, but those diseases had nothing to do with lack of meat.

Meat is not the requirement, you are correct. It is the nutrients that are the requirement. However, that does not change the fact that for many nutrients, plants are a poorer source than meat. A little meat goes a lot further toward satisfying a persons daily requirement for energy, amino acids, minerals, and fat soluble vitamins than an equal amount of corn, soy, tomatoes, carrots, apples, etc.

Re:And

[Anonymous Coward]

Right. I back up a moderately misinformed opinion with misinformation stated like absolute fact. After all, I might have heard it once or else I just think it should or could be true is true. After all, I am a Universal Expert. Right.

I have heard...

[Slash.Poop]

...that Mars makes a great banana this time of year.

Dr. who?

[JDeane]

Well you cant garden with out water and I think we all know about the waters of mars!!!

Re:Dr. who?

[Locke2005]

...we all know about the waters of mars!!! Yes, we do.

Re:Dr. who?

[harrkev]

Well you cant garden with out water and I think we all know about the waters of mars!!!

Yes, but if you DO get one of these creatures and manage to capture it, infinite water supply!

Re:Dr. who?

[icannotthinkofaname]

Also, I don't care how much extra fuel you think you'll need, bring bikes with you.

Re:Dr. who?

[elrous0]

You ever tried to water your plants with a several parts dirt to every part granular ice? Now add in no carbon dioxide, weak sunlight, sterile rusty-sandy soil, and 1/150 the atmospheric pressure of earth.

You're gonna need some serious green thumb mojo for that one.

Re:Dr. who?

[TheNumberless]

no carbon dioxide

Actually, that's one of the very few problems you won't have trying to raise plants on Mars, considering it makes up 95% of the atmosphere. Even despite the greatly lower atmospheric pressure, it has more CO2 per unit surface area than Earth.

Of course, everything else you mentioned, along with the lack of oxygen, is pretty accurate

Re:Dr. who?

[Khyber]

News for you:

The level of atmospheric CO2 in the Martian atmosphere would cause severely stunted growth, if anything grew at all. Plants don't like more than about 1000-1500 PPM CO2, any higher than that and you start hitting problems.

Now to address something else said (not by you, by the one you replied to)

"You ever tried to water your plants with a several parts dirt to every part granular ice?"

Guess how hydroponics works? It was shown that dirtied water performed better than pure, ever since... the 1600s? In natural conditions, soil acts as a mineral nutrient reservoir but the soil itself is not essential to plant growth. When the mineral nutrients in the soil dissolve in water, plant roots are able to absorb them.

Re:Dr. who?

[scdeimos]

Plants don't like more than about 1000-1500 PPM CO2, any higher than that and you start hitting problems.

Maybe, maybe not.

Some greenhouses routinely raise their CO2 levels above 10,000-15,000ppm for several hours at a time so as to kill insects pests (levels above 5,000ppm are considered to be toxic to animal life). The plants don't seem to mind this.

Even way back in 1969 there were research papers, such as "Ethylene and Carbon Dioxide in the Growth and Development of Cultured Radish Roots," that grew plants with constant 10,000ppm CO2 exposure with no ill-effect.

Re:Dr. who?

[Khyber]

Those papers are way outdated.

http://wihort.uwex.edu/flowers/greenhousegases.htm

"CO2 levels of 300ppm are generally what are needed for good plant growth, while levels above 1200ppm can become injurious. CO2 deficiency can occur in greenhouses that are closed up in winter to conserve heat. When CO2 is limiting, plant growth slows resulting in stunted plants and delayed maturity. Conversely, too much CO2 will also stunt plants but this is usually accompanied by chlorosis or necrosis of the foliage"

Why Mars and not the Moon?

[kheldan]

I don't quite understand why it is we're (ostensibly) pushing for Mars now, when we should be working to get back to the Moon first? Wouldn't we gain all sorts of experience and understanding of living on a non-terrestrial world living on the Moon, as well as possibly building infrastructure there to make future missions to Mars and elsewhere easier, amongst a myriad of other things the Moon would be useful for? Or is this just Obama paying lip-service to the idea, knowing that future administrations will likely vote the whole thing down anyway so it doesn't matter?

Re:Why Mars and not the Moon?

[Locke2005]

Why would you want to go to all the trouble and energy of escaping the Earth's gravity well, only to drop back into another gravity well? I say we shoot for the asteroid belt -- it has both the necessary resources and easier access to them. Sure, it lacks gravity, but so does the moon.

Re:Why Mars and not the Moon?

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't quite understand why it is we're (ostensibly) pushing for Mars now, when we should be working to get back to the Moon first? Wouldn't we gain all sorts of experience and understanding of living on a non-terrestrial world living on the Moon, as well as possibly building infrastructure there to make future missions to Mars and elsewhere easier, amongst a myriad of other things the Moon would be useful for? Or is this just Obama paying lip-service to the idea, knowing that future administrations will likely vote the whole thing down anyway so it doesn't matter?

Candy bars taste better than cheese.

Re:Why Mars and not the Moon?

[Anonymous Coward]

That's easy.

Targeting Mars is a way to not do _anything_ without the yokels catching on.

Re:Why Mars and not the Moon?

[Skarecrow77]

Actually, Mars and the Moon aren't very similar at all other than the superficial difference of "they're both outside LEO, and neither one has an oxygen atmosphere". You can get better approximation of living and working on Mars in antarctica, or hell even Wyoming, than you can on the Moon.

The moon is absolutely positivly not a prerequsite for Mars. You certainly can (and should!) design hardware that simultaniously serves dual roles on both the Moon and Mars, in order to save expenses, but there is no "study" or "experimentation" that needs to be done on the moon to prepare us for Mars.

We had comprehensive, workable, plans based on existing (not future) hardware and technology to get to Mars since at least the mid 90s. We didn't do it because of internal NASA bickering and politics. Everybody thinks "oh we can't get to mars for X reason without Y technology". When you ask other scientists about X reason, they explain that X is bunk, and that the real reason the first group is so "concerned" with X reason is because Y technology is the pet project of that team.

Of course then this same second group explains to you that the REAL reason we can't get to Mars is because of reason Z, which will convinently be fixed by THEIR technology Q, which they could get finished quickly if only they had more funding.

It's all about getting funding for your pet project.

Re:Why Mars and not the Moon?

[inviolet]

Why would you want to go to all the trouble and energy of escaping the Earth's gravity well, only to drop back into another gravity well? I say we shoot for the asteroid belt -- it has both the necessary resources and easier access to them. Sure, it lacks gravity, but so does the moon.

Yep yep.

And besides, Mars is already a very nice place for whatever silicon-based transhumans evolve from us. It's cool, and has no moisture or oxygen; it's hopelessly wrong for us meat-based creatures but safe and comfortable for intelligent machines.

Re:Why Mars and not the Moon?

[CrimsonAvenger]

I don't quite understand why it is we're (ostensibly) pushing for Mars now,

We're not actually pushing for Mars now. We're talking about pushing for Mars...

Nor did Obama say as much. What he said is that he expects to see humans go to Mars by the 2030's. He didn't actually go as far as saying that he's going to direct NASA to move in that direction, or provide them any money for R&D leading in that direction....

Re:Why Mars and not the Moon?

[poly_pusher]

That's a gross over simplification. I recently saw an article about an ex-NASA astronaut that is developing a new type of rocket that could cut the travel time to Mars by 1/3. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Variable_Specific_Impulse_Magnetoplasma_Rocket It isn't just a matter of "We have the technology to get there" It is also a matter of "How can we get there and still be alive. The most dangerous part about a mission to Mars is getting there and back. There are so many threats presented by space travel and if we are going to try to travel to Mars, we damn well better actually make it there. The easiest way to reduce this risk is spending less time in space and that means getting there faster. So no, the technology is not ready, has not been ready, and will not be ready for a while. Just think about it. Imagine a micrometeor ends up being responsible for the failure of a project like this that cost billions. We still have a lot of issues to work out and a lot of knowledge to be gained. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Micrometeoroid

Re:Why Mars and not the Moon?

[Skarecrow77]

The VAST majority of failed Mars missions failed during automated landing, not during transit.

Granted, we weren't sending air-breathing meatbags before, but let me ask you this question: What's the big problem with risks?

Re:Why Mars and not the Moon?

[Tumbleweed]

Yes, we can certainly learn valuable things by actually setting up bases on the Moon, as opposed to half a dozen one-off trips, but it's no substitute for going to Mars, which is itself no substitute for going other places like the asteroid belt or the moons of Jupiter and Saturn or the Oort Cloud. As for the Moon, I'd rather see the it colonized by Helium-3 mining operations.

I'd really like to see us setting up living & manufacturing stations at the Earth/Moon Lagrangian points and elsewhere, and figure out how to mine the asteroids and process those materials _in space_ (rather than bring the mined materials back to earth for processing, only to send them back up again for use in space). This is how you start a spacefaring civilization. We need to get this kind of thing up and running as fast as possible, as it will make everything else vastly cheaper and faster.

Re:Why Mars and not the Moon?

[elrous0]

Antarctica is WAY more hospitable to human life than Mars. At least there you have normal pressure, oxygen, water, decent shielding from cosmic radiation, etc. Mars thin little atmosphere and higher gravity is about the only thing that separates it from the moon. And, without oxygen, that atmosphere is likely to be at least as big as hassle as a help.

Re:Why Mars and not the Moon?

[Mindcontrolled]

If you want to know about Mars and transhumans, read Dan Simmon's Illium and Olympos. Not sure if we want that to happen...

Re:Why Mars and not the Moon?

[DerekLyons]

The moon is absolutely positivly not a prerequsite for Mars. You certainly can (and should!) design hardware that simultaniously serves dual roles on both the Moon and Mars, in order to save expenses, but there is no "study" or "experimentation" that needs to be done on the moon to prepare us for Mars.

That's true of the hardware. That's not even remotely true of operating experience, engineering experience, etc... etc... The Moon isn't a required prerequisite, no. But to imply that going there first is without value is a major error.
 

We had comprehensive, workable, plans based on existing (not future) hardware and technology to get to Mars since at least the mid 90s.

For certain handwaving values of the words "comprehensive" and "workable", and with only fairly minor parts actually using existing hardware and technology... sure. In reality, no so much. Nobody has actually fielded the hardware required to keep the propellants at cryogenic temperatures for years on end for example. Nor have we figured how to actually land on Mars. (The atmosphere is too thin for parachutes only for any significant payload, and the gravity well too deep to rely on a propulsive landing for any significant payload.) We've only had one re-entry at anything resembling interplanetary speeds. Etc... etc...
 

We didn't do it because of internal NASA bickering and politics.

You couldn't be more wrong if you tried. In the first place, no Administration has placed space as a priority. Ever. In the second place, Congress was for most of the 70's to the 90's openly hostile to funding anything having to do with Mars exploration. (Hint: There's a reason why there were no Mars missions between Viking (1976) and Mars Pathfinder (1996).) The funding didn't start flowing significantly until NASA announced the discover of evidence of Martian life inside the ALH 84001 meteorite.

Re:Why Mars and not the Moon?

[poly_pusher]

As you later clarified, the missions you are referencing are irrelevant because they did not carry passengers. C'mon dude... Furthermore you are talking about automated landings for which we have a 20 minute delay before we even get any feedback during landing. Very different situations.

The big problem with risks is Money. Specifically tax payer dollars. If you want to toss a tin can on a trebuchet and try to launch yourself to Mars, be my guest. Not with tax payer dollars. Not until we know what to expect from a manned trip of that duration, and our confident that the trip will succeed in providing valuable research and experience. There's no point otherwise.

Re:Why Mars and not the Moon?

[petermgreen]

I personally think that we probablly can get to mars but if we get too gung-ho we will probablly lose one or more crews before we get one there. The question then is will there be the political will to continue in the face of such losses.

Look at the ISS, IIRC several times they have had to change cargo manifests because the oxygen recycling system has failed and they are running on backup oxygen (from tanks or oxygen candles). Once you start a trip to mars the stuff you take with you is ALL YOU ARE GOING TO GET.

Re:Why Mars and not the Moon?

[Anonymous Coward]

I've always had the impression that the abundance of loose rocks flying around in the asteroid belt makes hanging out there for an extended stay rather difficult. While most of the particles are generally moving in the same direction in orbit around the Sun, they are still moving at velocity relative to each other and colliding somewhat regularly.

Re:Why Mars and not the Moon?

[Khyber]

"Why would you want to go to all the trouble and energy of escaping the Earth's gravity well, only to drop back into another gravity well?"

Uh, duh. Helium-3 for energy. use the moon as a more efficient launching station for missions with 1/6 Earth's gravity and loads of Helium-3 for energy.

Re:Why Mars and not the Moon?

[garyebickford]

I say we shoot for the asteroid belt -- it has both the necessary resources and easier access to them. Sure, it lacks gravity ...

Indeed - you could even say it doesn't suck! :D

Re:Why Mars and not the Moon?

[Gilmoure]

Screw Moon and Mars, I want an asteroid. If we could park one near L4 or L5...

Ok, Phobos or Demos might be cool.

Re:Why Mars and not the Moon?

[Skarecrow77]

why are you so confidant the trip wont succeed?

We know what kind of radiation exposure to expect.

we know what to expect from 6 months of micro gravity (not that we can't simulate some gravity with some centripetal force).

we know what kind of psychological effects to expect from keeping 4-6 people in close confines for 6 months.

we know what to expect from keeping people away from their families for 3 years.

we know what to expect from mars itself as far as landing. We have a much better idea than we did just 5 years ago where we'd want to land and why.

It sounds to me that you don't want to go until you can guarantee 100% success. name one voyage of discovery/exploration that EVER had that guarantee?

Hell we can't even guarantee that a $700 stimulus bill will affect the economy in a positive way, but we sure as hell spent that, and that was in a single year. A well planned mission to mars is $50 billion over 10 years for THREE trips. That's three chances to be successful no less.

psst, that's like 10% of Nasa's operating budget

Re:Why Mars and not the Moon?

[pr0f3550r]

Perhaps the word 'belt' conjours the fantastical idea of a traffic jam of large boulders bumping and colliding with each other as displayed in popular science fiction. The asteroid belt is not crowded as many would believe and the total mass of the entire thing is less than that of the moon. In fact, about 1/2 of the total mass is contained within just 4 objects which are approximately the sizes of Pluto and Charon (This is part of the reason why Pluto has been demoted as a full planet). The rest is much smaller bits (some the size of mere dust) randomly spread over an area of about 200,000,000,000,000,000 square kilometers

The only purpose for setting up camp on the asteroids would be for mining. Smelting presents a problem for both the moon AND for asteroids because most smelting requires the generation of heat and for that gravity and atmosphere tend to be bonuses.

The moons gravity well is one sixth that of earth which makes blasting off from the surface of the moon trivial at about 2 and 1/3 km/s. In addition, getting the moon is an easy calculation and takes only days with our current technologies, and you don't have to make an interplanetary insertion like you would to the asteroid belt.

It's BECAUSE it has gravity and it's proximity to the Earth that make the moon ideal. But interplanetary, exploration is sexier, costlier and case placates the masses who still yearn for man to be a space-faring people. Mars a waste, IMHO.

Re:Why Mars and not the Moon?

[Anonymous Coward]

politicians would look silly if they said they need 20-30 years to go back to the moon, and if they gave a shorter timeline, they would actually have to do something to make it happen. mars in 20-30 years is convenient, no exact date, no real plan, no real intent to do anything, but to general population it seems like you are doing something big and fancy

Re:Why Mars and not the Moon?

[lennier]

Helium-3 for energy.

Assuming we get controlled fusion of any kind working first / at all, of course. Small matter of engineering, though, right?

Re:Why Mars and not the Moon?

[lennier]

What's the big problem with risks?

That dramatic patriotic music, shots of the President looking gravely into space, a roaring rocket and beeping pinging machines followed by a slow pan down to a squishy pile of wreckage with disturbing squelchy bits... doesn't make for good newscasts. Or job approval numbers.

Re:Why Mars and not the Moon?

[Khyber]

Chould be easier to accomplish in a lower-G environment since we have less forces at work against us, but it's still an engineering issue, indeed.

Re:Why Mars and not the Moon?

[Skarecrow77]

Once you start a trip to mars the stuff you take with you is ALL YOU ARE GOING TO GET.

for the trip there, certainly.

Once you're there? not at all! In fact, the only way to realistically do anything even approaching a cost-effective trip to mars is to produce as much as possible from the Martian resources. In fact, the only thing you really need to take with you is a good bit of hydrogen. You can use that Hydrogen to react with martian CO2 to produce water, methane, and oxygen.

It sounds complicated, but the chemical processes have really been around since the 1800s.

Re:Why Mars and not the Moon?

[poly_pusher]

From the following space.com article: http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/mars_dangers_040120.html Scientists are still working to characterize the dangers and develop the technologies necessary for safe suits and ships. This much they know: Any trip beyond Earth orbit will involve radiation threats not faced by residents of the International Space Station, which sits inside the planet's magnetic field. A 2-1/2-year trip to Mars, including six months of travel time each way, would expose an astronaut to nearly the lifetime limit of radiation allowed under NASA guidelines. The Moon, with no atmosphere, is more dangerous than the surface of Mars. Lunar forays will have to be brief unless expensive shielded habitats are built. Mission planners knew the Apollo astronauts would be at grave risk if a strong solar flare occurred during a mission. The short duration of each trip was a key to creating favorable odds. "A big solar event during one of those missions could have been catastrophic," said Cary Zeitlin, a radiation expert at the National Space Biomedical Research Institute at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston. "The risk was known. They gambled a bit." Once again, the purpose of space travel is not to "do something really cool" It is to gain scientific understanding. Any other reason is pointless. A failed mission reduces the amount of scientific knowledge we gain. Risk is fine. People take risks everyday. Currently and ironically trying to go to Mars is like "shooting the moon." Huge risk with small odds of worthwhile reward.

Re:Why Mars and not the Moon?

[aug24]

One reason may well be that the moon has an incredibly abrasive environment due to its lack of atmosphere. The wear rate on the lunar expeditions' equipment was incredible. Long term, that means a dome and constant repairs.

Antarctica?

[mi]

Can we, please, please, please, colonize Antarctica first? Although not a planet, it is still a giant continent, that many times easier to reach, to live on, and to return from than Mars.

There are no questions of presence of water or usable air. Conditions are harsh, but nowhere near the harshness of Mars...

And then there are the vast deserts like Gobi or Sahara. Mars, while intriguing, can await further revolutions in technology. Spending an appreciable chunk of the GDP just to get there seems rather wasteful...

Re:Antarctica?

[doti]

and the sea too

Re:Antarctica?

[dtml-try MyNick]

Please, for the love of God....

Can we at least try to leave some portions of this planet relatively intact?
Humans have cannibalized this planet enough as it is already.

Re:Antarctica?

[Jeng]

There are UN resolutions prohibiting people from colonizing Antarctica, that doesn't prevent us from putting scientific outposts on Antarctica, which is what we would be putting on Mars.

The bitter north has been colonized by man in cases where there are economic reasons for being there and so far Mars doesn't seem to have any unobtainium to make it worth our while.

Re:Antarctica?

[Anonymous Coward]

Further revolutions in technology will not occur if there's no need for them. By saying that we want to go to mars, we can start to direct some cash to those technological revolutions necessary for it.

Not to say that Antarctica wouldn't be a good place to start, just saying that a catalyst is needed to develop technologies.

"We now live in a world where man has walked on the moon. And you know it's not a miracle, we just decided to go."

Re:Antarctica?

[laejoh]

famous last words: Tekeli-li! Tekeli-li!

Re:Antarctica?

[Skarecrow77]

I think it has something to do with some pact made by a bunch of nations back in the begining of the previous century (maybe before?) regarding developing antarctica. I'm too lazy to wikipedia it up right now.

that being said, I actually support this. We can start doing it -right now-, and learning to set up a workable colony in antarctica is actually very valid training for setting up a colony on Mars. A lot less oxygen and gravity on Mars, some more radiation, most of the "ice" is CO2 not H2O, and leaving is a lot harder, but otherwise pretty much the same sort of thing.

Re:Antarctica?

[CannonballHead]

Why?

I'm not trolling. This is a seriousm philosophical question: why? "Humans," to most people, represent nothing more than an animal in a long evolutionary chain. Why is what we are doing any different from what any other animal does?

Re:Antarctica?

[Anonymous Coward]

That argument makes sense. But wouldn't a USEFUL project be a better direction to put our effort?

The US has decided to be energy independent by the end of the decade, not because it is easy, but because it is hard. Not because there is any clear answer at this point that will get us there, but SPECIFICALLY because there are no clear solutions at this time. We will have to invest, invent and innovate in order to achieve this goal. We will have to come up with solutions that aren't even proposals at this point. We will have to solve problems that appear unsolvable. Achieving this goal will be of great value, but the effort that we put into it and the inventions along the way.

Either that or we could transport 2 or 3 steely-eyed missile men to a dead rock.

Re:Antarctica?

[Anonymous Coward]

No, we can't colonize Antarcitca first. This is why.

Re:Antarctica?

[phantomfive]

I support Barack Obama, but not his mission.

What, exactly, do you consider to be the mission of Barack Obama? And how can you support him if you don't support what he wants to do? I believe that is the definition of NOT supporting.

Re:Antarctica?

[Mindcontrolled]

We DO have a manned presence in Antarctica, all year round, doing interesting science. We have been doing that for years. At the moment, we do NOT need more land to colonize, so why colonize Antarctica? Could we just move on please, and get a continuous manned presence outside of LEO, doing interesting science? That, and perhaps into the deep oceans.

Re:Antarctica?

[Jeng]

NASA does have research stations on Antarctica some of them with the express purpose of training for off world missions.

We have had a station on the south pole since around 1960, so close to 50 years we've had a base on the South Pole.

Re:Antarctica?

[Anonymous Coward]

Sorry, but the average person doesn't think of humans as animals. They think we're bestowed with knowledge, by a zombie and his father.

But, I believe the real difference is it would only take mankind a couple months or years (at most) to make the Earth's surface uninhabitable (if we intentionally blow it up). We're only talking about our own extinction, but it would have a big effect on everything else temporarily (a few thousand years maybe). That's the difference between us and other animals. We have intelligence, and therefore are capable of changing the environment faster than any other life.

I consider us on almost even ground with nature. We're the second most destructive force on Earth. (we're -unlikely- to blow up mountains, obliterate countless species each day, etc.)

Re:Antarctica?

[Anonymous Coward]

Humans," to most people, represent nothing more than an animal in a long evolutionary chain.

I'm not too sure of the accuracy of you assertion when applied to USAia.

Why is what we are doing any different from what any other animal does?

Things people do that no other animal we know of has ever done: (abbreviated list)
- Build bulldozers
- Generate highly radioactive waste
- Send probes outside Earth's gravity well (heck, the Sun's, even...)

Re:Antarctica?

[TheNumberless]

I see two main reasons for preserving the natural world:

1.) That our reckless behaviour with respect to the Earth could be against our self-interest as a species. We still very much rely on the biosphere to stay alive, yet we don't fully understand it. Every risk we take with respect to it is worth consideration and evaluation. We are capable of doing enough damage to either make existence very difficult, or render ourselves extinct. The Earth itself, and life in general, will probably shrug that off, and that's cool. But I'd like us to stick around for the long haul.

2.) Its destruction offends our sensibilities. Lots of people want some semblance of the natural world external to humanity to be preserved for lots of other reasons, many of which are completely subjective. That's their right.

Re:Antarctica?

[lennier]

At the moment, we do NOT need more land to colonize, so why colonize Antarctica?

If we don't need more land to colonise, then we certainly don't need space to colonise, do we?

Outposts in space are one thing, but the usual space future vision claims that 'we have to have outposts in space SO THAT we can colonise it'. But if there's no need for the colonisation then...

Re:Antarctica?

[iacvlvs]

There are dozens of reasons to prefer Antarctica as a destination. Mars, in my opinion, has one big advantage: it would decouple the continued existence of humanity from the continued habitability of Earth.

Right now we could be destroyed completely by an asteroid impact, a supervolcano, anything that takes terrestrial conditions out of the relatively narrow band we can survive in. Getting off this rock would reduce the risk of something bad happening and wiping us out. Developing the technology to make a Martian colony self sustaining would widen the band of terrestrial conditions we can survive in.

Fairly pointless research

[Orga]

Currently we have rules against engineering other planets and it's made very clear without massively changing the atmosphere on Mars to filter out UV rays then everything is going to have to live in biospheres... we can do that anywhere.. even in space.

Re:Fairly pointless research

[mark-t]

"Currently we have rules against engineering other planets"

We do? Where?

Re:Fairly pointless research

[Orga]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outer_Space_Treaty

Re:Fairly pointless research

[Jeng]

You know what they say.

Rules are made to be broken.

Also, this is the beginning of their research, I'm sure that making them UV resistant is going to be a phase of their research.

Re:Fairly pointless research

[Anonymous Coward]

I was actually amazed to learn this as well. Apparently there is an organization called COSPAR which has decided that it isn't in mankind's best interests to terraform other worlds, because there might be existing microbiotic life there.

I doubt that the organization has any teeth. Further, I think that, unless we find actual Martians on Mars, COSPAR will be ignored when push comes to shove.

The more research I do, the more that I find that the international space programs (NASA incuded) are far too much about science and feel-good fluff and far too little about human progress. The ratio is probably close to 10:1.

I'm usually against privatization, but in this case it might be the only way to get some bodies on a celestial body.

Re:Fairly pointless research

[Skarecrow77]

Plants are a lot hardier than you think they are.

And we've been genetically engineering plants for even more survivability and yield forever.

Re:Fairly pointless research

[weirdo557]

have you tried?

Re:Fairly pointless research

[Attila Dimedici]

Having read your link, I see nothing in it against terraforming Mars, just a provision against claiming it as part of the US and a provision against "militarizing" it..

Re:Fairly pointless research

[Orga]

In the citations is a link to the another abbreviation of the treaty here: http://www.unoosa.org/oosa/SpaceLaw/outerspt.html I'm not going to pour over it to find you the exact article suffice to to say: States shall avoid harmful contamination of space and celestial bodies. harmful can be construed in many ways of course but I think it's safe to say you are harming something when you are changing the natural state of being.

Re:Fairly pointless research

[Smauler]

it's pore, not pour, btw.

Re:Fairly pointless research

[bigpat]

but I think it's safe to say you are harming something when you are changing the natural state of being.

I don't think that is safe to say at all. I don't think you can do harm to something unless it is alive or is used by living things.

Re:Fairly pointless research

[Attila Dimedici]

Harmful contamination of space and celestial bodies means to me, "don't make them more inhospitable to life than they already are." Since the suggestion is to terraform Mars, that would not be harmful to Mars in my interpretation. So, I do not agree that we have rules against engineering other planets.
This is why I asked for a more clear citation. I do not agree with your interpretation of the treaty and I do not believe that those who ratified it did either.

Re:Fairly pointless research

[darthdavid]

Even if that treaty actually meant what you think does, how the fuck is it actually going to stop someone from doing it. Space is the ultimate high ground, the first nation that says 'fuck it' and goes full bore on space based weaponry is going to have a major advantage. Furthermore, all the nations that actually want this treaty to be the state of things will have no space based military themselves so they won't be able to stop anyone from breaking it unless they break it themselves!

At the end of the day it's not a matter of if, but of when we get space based weaponry, from the top of a gravity well you can use hunks of rock as nuke equivalents. It's pretty hard to win a war when your opponent can just go "rocks fall, everybody dies" on your ass...

Re:Fairly pointless research

[r_jensen11]

"Currently we have rules against engineering other planets"

We do? Where?

Europe

Title could also be Gardening On Earth in 50 years

[Orga]

just a thought

This is gonna be named...

[Anonymous Coward]

Garden of Eden Creation Kit :)

Re:Title could also be Gardening On Earth in 50 ye

[CannonballHead]

That doesn't garner excitement, advancement ... and funding though.

Re:How, exactly?

[Locke2005]

What do you mean by "we", meatbag?

War or Space?

[Anonymous Coward]

So which is it?

I vote space, since it does prompt technological progress faster than without, however too much of our(US) present existence(see World Power..) depends on the continued war machine.

On another note, WHY do we not have several SVU sized rovers kicking up dust on the moon? There is science to be done here, there, everywhere, yet here we sit conjuring up plans that are a decade/s away. The current mindsight for technological progress is bunk.

Re:War or Space?

[Anonymous Coward]

War or Space?

False dichotomy. Why choose when you can have both?

I vote space war!

Re:War or Space?

[Jeng]

Since the investments are so great NASA makes damn sure that things are going to work.

Their failures are spectacular and sometimes fatal. And too many big ones would be fatal to the agency.

Science is still being done with the current crop of rovers. Its nice, safe, and a success every single day its still being done.

If NASA dropped a new, bigger, better rover on the planet it would overshadow the current success. And if it failed, would people still be excited about the little rover that could?

Useless posturing

[Anonymous Coward]

Planning what to put into a colonial garden for mars is useless, unless NASA and pals decides to send more than your typical Cambridge/MIT grads.

The reasons are pretty simple: For the same reasons you wouldnt hire a plumber to do an angioplasty (Hey, it's just another plugged up pipe, right?) you shouldnt send engineers to do agriculture. Farmers are the people with the years of experience dealing with agricultural problems and issues, and are the ones best suited for that job. The MIT/Cambridge grads are the people who are best suited to designing the habitat and it's facilities. While these engineers may design the habitat to facilitate agricultural practices, this does not in any way, shape, or form make them the ideal choice for doing that kind of work. (More likely, they would balk about having to dig in the dirt to grow their own food; Much preferring to sit in a desk and design the next phase of the habitat's construction, as would be their specialty.)

Similarly, they would need Civil Engineers, Machinists, Doctors, etc.

A colony is a far cry from what NASA/European Space Agency/Russian Space Agency/Et al. are used to doing with their space stations.

An actual Bona-fide colony is self sufficient, and thus has to make everything itself; that means you have to take those "No, You are NOT an astronaut!" people with you: Welders, Plumbers, Construction workers, etc.

Quite frankly, I just don't see any of the major space agencies "dirtying" their fingers by carrying out such a move; None of them will want to be the one to send Joe Sixpack into orbit.

 

Re:Useless posturing

[Aging_Newbie]

"None of them will want to be the one to send Joe Sixpack into orbit."

You forget the ship loaded with Telephone Sanitizers, Beauticians, Managers, etc. from Douglas Adams' Hitchhiker series...

Not only that ... but ... Since we have no use for people able to produce really nutritious wholesome food on this planet, maybe we send them to another where their work is appreciated

Planetary visits are an obsolete idea

[bradbury]

The entire concept of planetary visits, colonies, etc. is the one of the most out-of-date (read waste-of-time) ideas currently circulating. The only people that promote it are those with misguided romantic ideas about humans exploring Mars as they did the Earth in the 16th-18th centuries. They should be discarded as out of date given that (a) humans are not designed (due to insufficient and error prone DNA repair systems in their genome) to endure long term space voyages or planetary habitation outside of the magnetosphere of the Earth (where high radiation doses are a constant threat); (b) progress in robotics and AI is likely to make sending robotic explorers much more productive and less hazardous than sending humans by 2030; and (c) if we pushed on molecular nanotechnology just a little harder by 2030 we would be disassembling Mars for material to build the Matrioshka Brain rather than thinking about growing food on it for colonists (no point building a farm if you are only going to disassemble it).

I like the romantic exploration ideas just as much as the next person -- but it just isn't justified given current rates of technological progress. It is also worth pointing out if we ever get to the point where we modify our genomes (or those of astronaut explorers) to be radiation tolerant we can also engineer them to be lack-of-gravity tolerant [1]. In which case living at the bottom of a gravity well makes no sense -- instead we should be migrating to O'Neill style colonies or long term interstellar "arks" (presumably to remove the "single-point-of-failure" problem humanity faces by living on a single planet or around a single star).

1. Modifying large numbers of cells to be radiation & lack-of-gravity tolerant in adults will be very hard (read nearly impossible) without molecular nanotechnology (e.g. chromallocytes) in adults. The only way to do this correctly is to breed a new species of human designed for space environments. Unless you can engineer them to mature much faster (doubtful) that implies you need to take transgenic-human-birth-dates + ~25-30 years before one can seriously consider long term exploration/colonization efforts.

Re:Planetary visits are an obsolete idea

[Anonymous Coward]

You know, I can't help but start laughing at this post;

While certainly true that humans are not biologically adapted to conditions on a long space voyage, Humans are not biologically adapted to crossing large oceans either. Nor are they biologically adapted to flying at high altitudes.

Humans routinely do these things though.

Something you might (or might not, given the tone of your post) find interesting:

http://pop.aip.org/phpaen/v14/i5/p053502_s1?isAuthorized=no
[abstract about inflation of magnetic fields using high density plasmas]

Essentially, you could create a massively inflated magnetic field around the spacecraft by circulating a high-velocity plasma jet through the magnetic field. If we are already taking a small fission plant with us (to power our craft as we leave the sun behind) this is less of a problem. Additionally, we could potentially use the same expanded magnetic field as a solar sail, since in space the field would expand to a *ahem* "Very considerable" size.

The major issue would be with micrometeorites.

As for Mars itself:

Mars as an incomplete magnetic envelope. It has multiple magnetic dipoles, that do not fully expand outside the planet's atmosphere. By supplementing the martian magnetosphere with a series of stabilizing plasma producing satellites, and capturing the solar wind particles and recirculating them through an artificial network of magnetic currents, a semi-stable magnetic envelope could possibly be produced, but it would require a project on par with our GPS and COM-SAT network around the earth.

(the goal would be to create something similar to the van-allen belts that circle the earth; being essentially solar wind particles that have become trapped in the earth;s magnetosphere, and which expand/enhance it. This phenomenon is well known; See for instance, Io's effect on Jupiter's magnetosphere.)

http://www.solarviews.com/eng/io.htm

Re:Planetary visits are an obsolete idea

[MozeeToby]

(a) humans are not designed (due to insufficient and error prone DNA repair systems in their genome) to endure long term space voyages or planetary habitation outside of the magnetosphere of the Earth (where high radiation doses are a constant threat);

Humans aren't designed for a lot of things we do on a regular basis. It is our technology that allows us to live in many of the environments we call home, I bet more than 50% of people on the planet would die within a year if you put us back in the stone age. And even stone age technology (simple tools, simple shelter, and fire) is still a big step up from what the human body alone is capable of. My point is that what the human body is and isn't designed for is irrelevant, it's what we can design and build to support us.

Re:Planetary visits are an obsolete idea

[WrongMonkey]

I think your timeline for nanotech and Matrioshka Brains is about 2 orders of magnitude too optimistic, but the your basic point seems irrefutable. By the time we do have technology to colonize other worlds, why would we want to? Resource gathering will certainly be an automated task, colonizing doesn't solve any overpopulation problems and most extinction level events aren't avoided if your colony is still in the same solar system (or even the same galactic neighborhood). The problem is that the sci-fi genre started off as a metaphor for contemporary societies and then moved on to wish fulfilment scenarios. Now that we're on the cusp of realizing some these technologies, no one wants to admit that their fantasies are just plain impractical.

Re:Planetary visits are an obsolete idea

[BJ_Covert_Action]

Hold on just a second. If you want to make an argument that manned spacelfight/settlement is an intrinsically flawed idea, then by all means, do your best. However, you state:

if we pushed on molecular nanotechnology just a little harder by 2030 we would be disassembling Mars for material to build the Matrioshka Brain

But just before that you criticize the idea of developing a manned space presence as:

misguided romantic ideas

So you honestly think that in twenty years we could dematerialize a planet and use the resources to construct a Dyson Sphere or Dyson Swarm (probably multiple ones) in such a manner that it can perform powerful computations for whatever reason we need? And you can criticize other ideas for being romantic and misguided with a straight face? Don't get me wrong, the manned vs. unmanned presence in space is a reasonable enough discussion to have, if it is being had reasonably. However, I don't think you quite understand the engineering feats necessary to construct something on the level of a Matrioshka Brain if you think we are going to be doing that in twenty years. I also would be very prone to declare your ideas to be rather romantic and, at best, far too optimistic. I'm just curious, what sources of information do you have access to that make you think we, as a species, could develop anything near a Matrioshka brain in the 2030's?

Also, I would like to ask you one more thing that I think a lot of the, "manned spaceflight is outdated," crowd fails to consider. I will admit, that it is a romantic question, but I still have to ask it. Do you ever think a goal is worth pursuing simply because it is impressive, difficult, and/or fascinating?

Maybe manned spaceflight is not the most practical or logical means to explore space. Maybe one day, soon, robots will be able to perform as many diverse tasks as humans so as to make them as effective as humans in space. Those are separate arguments. However, I would assert that sending a man or woman, or multiple men or women, to visit planetary bodies and/or colonies is worth pursuing precisely because it is difficult. As you said, we meatbags are not designed for space. However, not being designed for an environment has never kept us from pursuing some outrageous goals. Humans are not designed for flight, yet we built airplanes. Humans are not designed to live underwater, yet we built submarines. Hell, humans aren't even designed to live in Antartica, but we have habitats and science research stations there.

Humans have an incredible track record of spitting in Mother Nature's face when it comes to doing what we are supposed to do. If we only did what we were designed to do, we would have never studied volcanoes, we would have never tamed cattle, and we would probably have never upgraded from tents to houses. Sometimes we go against this harsh, entropic reality for logical and practical reasons. However, sometimes we go against this harsh, entropic reality precisely because it is difficult and, by all logical analysis, irrational and impossible. And when we succeed in those ridiculous ventures, the entire species comes together with a swelling sense of pride and inspiration that drives each and every one of us to work harder and progress our species further. You can say that pursuing goals for purely inspirational purposes is silly, impractical, and downright stupid if you want. But I would have to disagree with your and wonder just how boring of a life you lead. Sometimes gumption and motivation are resources that need to be mined and stockpiled just like any other resource worth having. In the end, it all comes down to what we choose, as a species, to place more value on. I think that taking a balance approach, rather than an extremely one sided approach (like doing things for purely logical reasons, or doing things for purely emotional reasons), is the best approach to take. You, of course, are welcome to disagree.

Re:Planetary visits are an obsolete idea

[Anonymous Coward]

>(a) humans are not designed (due to insufficient and error prone DNA repair systems in their genome) to endure long term space voyages or planetary habitation outside of the magnetosphere of the Earth

Humans weren't designed AT ALL.

Having colonies on Mars would also serve as a transportation node to the outer solar system and the asteroid belt.
Those Island 3 colonies need to be made out of something.

Re:Planetary visits are an obsolete idea

[GooberToo]

but the your basic point seems irrefutable. By the time we do have technology to colonize other worlds, why would we want to?

That's a great question! It highlights exactly why both of you are completely wrong. "Irrefutable?" Hardly.

It all boils down to one thing. Do you want humanity to survive? If the answer is yes, we have no choice but to colonize other planets. Its not a question of "if" a life ending impact will terminate all life on Earth - its a question, "when." Period. End of discussion.

Re:Planetary visits are an obsolete idea

[Chris Burke]

My point is that what the human body is and isn't designed for is irrelevant, it's what we can design and build to support us.

While still agreeing with you, I might put it like this: The most distinguishing features of the human body are our upright posture, our dexterous hands for fine manipulation, and our large problem-solving abstract-thinking brains, which are all almost certainly interrelated features in our evolutionary history. Upright posture allowed our spines to support a much heavier head, and freed the hands to be used as tool-holders instead of for locomotion, while the benefits to adaptability given by intelligence and tool use made selection for upright posture stronger, etc.

In other words, I'd say this is exactly what human bodies were designed for.

Re:Planetary visits are an obsolete idea

[Anonymous Coward]

We can obviously fly and survive in extreme conditions like an F-15 pilot for example. Now explain to me why everyone isn't an F-15 pilot. Only then can we start talking about the same things.

Re:Planetary visits are an obsolete idea

[WrongMonkey]

You're missing the point. There are better ways to ensure humanities survival that plopping an colony at the bottom of another gravity well. If the sun starts shooting out solar flares or a black hole appears in our neighborhood or a gamma ray burst is aimed at us or there's a vacuum phase transition, then having a colony on Mars doesn't help at all. People who advocate colonization as a survival strategy are thinking too small.

Re:Planetary visits are an obsolete idea

[lennier]

(c) if we pushed on molecular nanotechnology just a little harder by 2030 we would be disassembling Mars for material to build the Matrioshka Brain

I think you misspelled 'huge Earth-melting nanotechnological accident' there.

Re:Planetary visits are an obsolete idea

[bradbury]

I didn't say we should literally dematerialize it, I said we should disassemble it. There are multiple paths for doing this [1,2]. All of the planets are at the bottom of various sized gravity wells -- if you have sufficient energy to move the matter out of the well you can "quickly" disassemble the planet. If one has a significant fraction of the Sun's power available (~10^26 W) then the disassembly of Mars takes ~176 days [3]. In actual practice it is likely to take longer due to the fact that one would have to divert power from Matrioshka Brain "thought" into planetary disassembly so there is a fair amount of politics involved ("whether to think or disassemble that is the question..."). The likely path in our solar system disassembles the asteroids first and then uses the swarm resulting from that to bootstrap the disassembly of Mars and/or Mercury. I discuss this further in the chapter "Under Construction" from the collection of essays in "Year Million". In solar systems lacking an asteroid belt one would probably start with the planet closest to the star (e.g. Mercury) since it has the largest planetary solar insolation as starting energy base.

Yes, I agree that humans have pursued a lot of things just for the fun of it. On the other hand I take a fairly "moral" approach here. Humanity looses ~40+ million lives a year due to aging. If the long term choices include saving that number of lives (each year) and providing them with either multi-thousand year lifespans (in biological form) or multi-billion year lifespans (as minds uploaded into a Matrioshka Brain) vs. sending a few dozen people to drive around or build "Quonset huts" on Mars then I chose the first as a more noble goal. One can easily incorporate the "colonization" adventure into a Matrioshka Brain vision -- just survey Mars completely before you disassemble it (or as you disassemble it) and construct a simulation of it to play on/in once ones mind is uploaded (you have seen the Matrix series I presume). Or if you were addicted to playing in a "real" world reconstruct a Mars-like mini-planetoid with the leftovers from the Mars disassembly process (there is likely to be a lot of iron and oxygen left over from inner planet disassembly which isn't particularly useful from a nanotechnology standpoint). People who are choosing romantic colonization notions need to reconcile whether to dedicate intellectual and financial resources to those notions or whether they should be used to solve real problems (people lacking choices with respect to how, when and if they die). My personal preference is solving real problems.

1. Incineration, highly parallelized rail gun launches, extreme mountain building, spinning up the planet, etc. Kaku's approach to building a "Death Star" (really "Stars" if you want to disassemble the planet quickly), as seen on the Science Channel, is close -- he just doesn't realize that you can have the entire solar power output at your disposal if you have nanotechnology enabled solar power satellite construction methods.
2. http://www.stardestroyer.net/Empire/Tech/Beam/DeathStar.html
3. http://www.aeiveos.com:8080/~bradbury/MatrioshkaBrains/OSETI3/4273-32.html

Re:Planetary visits are an obsolete idea

[GooberToo]

then having a colony on Mars doesn't help at all. People who advocate colonization as a survival strategy are thinking too small.

I'm sure the irony of your statement is completely missed on yourself. Its actually very funny. To believe Mars is in itself the end objective truly is the definition of, "thinking too small." Which places us back to the original point - you're wrong and don't even begin to understand just how wrong you are.

If you want to survive, you still only have one option - regardless of how short sighted YOU wish to be.

"some way off"

[Un pobre guey]

The creation of a human outpost on Mars is still some way off

Brilliant Holmes! Brilliant! "Some way off"! An astoundingly apt yet utterly meaningless estimate! Will it be in a year? 10 years? 50? 100? 1000? What does it even mean? Will it be 3 or 4 poor schmucks left to die on a distant and unfathomably inhospitable outpost? Will there be men and women, expected to raise families? Will they slide off into madness? Will there be 100 people? 1000? A million? And, of course, we cannot forget the tawdry subject of coin: what will it cost, and what could possibly justify it?

What can they do that cannot be done better, more cheaply, far more ambitiously and on a much larger scale by machines?

Re:"some way off"

[Anonymous Coward]

What can they do that cannot be done better, more cheaply, far more ambitiously and on a much larger scale by machines?

1. Live.

2. Be humans.

3. Be able to be the TOTALLY FUCKING BADASS astronaut who can say "I was the first guy to walk on MARS. You understand that, Earth boy? FUCKING MARS. While you sat on your ass and stuffed your face with tacos while hammering out this year's oh-so-goddamned-important earnings reports, I WENT TO FUCKING MARS. I got to do something you'll never experience in your miserable, worthless life because you're too scared to actually DO something but sit in that shitty office of yours and shuffle papers around. Once again: FUCKING MARS. Sit on THAT."

4. Say "Take me to your leader" if there ARE sentient Martians, and then laugh with glee.

Re:"some way off"

[Un pobre guey]

I have to admit that this is pretty much the gist of the "get our asses to Mars" crowd's argument. Of course, it justifies anything from a trip to New Jersey to a trip to another galaxy so it is just this side of meaningless, to say nothing of just plain dumb.

Re:How, exactly?

[Anonymous Coward]

Did I miss something?

How exactly are we going to get to Mars (or anywhere else in space) when Obama has been draining the lifeblood out of every avenue of manned exploration from NASA's budget?

He hasn't stopped manned space exploration in its totality, just the Constellation program, which was a drain of resources and NASA funding.

V egan population ?

[aepervius]

"and the continued survival of the worlds vegan population indicates that there are no major health problems with such a diet."

Are you meaning 1) the well fed vegan population out of idiology in the west, which have the advantage of science and big market to make sure their alimentation is varied and cover everything without suplementation

*OR*

2) the unhealthy , with pregnancy problem, carency, and assorted problem, OMNIVORE forced unto a vegan diet by circumstance ? Because that second group will eat protein if the occasion is there.

Furthermore place is limited. The question is maybe the fish protein allows maybe in a much easier and less place taking way to have a varied alimentation than juggling with various plant specie.

Re:V egan population ?

[vegiVamp]

I agree, space will be limited. There may not be room for the fields you need in order to feed your livestock.

is this a joke?

[Anonymous Coward]

Haha. I needed the morning laugh... We'll have people living on Mars in around 25 years??

Wow. Someone said I would be visiting the moon when I grew up...

Looks like some people can't realize that until we have an alternative to rocketry, there's not going to be much colonization of anything.

Re:is this a joke?

[Skarecrow77]

Chemical rockets are quite sufficent, considering that the problem isn't getting there in the first place, but slowing down enough to not skip out of orbit and off into deep space when you get there.

That being said, maybe you'd be interested in a Nuclear thermal rocket:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_thermal_rocket

GECK?

[notjustchalk]

"...a starter kit for the first colonists."

I'd lobby for it to be called the Garden of Eden Creation Kit, but there might be fallout from that decision...

Re:GECK?

[CannonballHead]

hehe...

Seriously, though, it would be a pretty bad name. Let's see. Garden of Eden: freely roam throughout the entire thing. All kinds of vegetation. Wonderful climate. Many other life forms for variety, none of which would actually harm you and thus you were free to mingle with them.

This garden kit: something that will hopefully allow you to breathe and maybe eat something, too.

It's like calling a kit that would allow you to build a very early computer that was the size of a house the "Mac Pro Construction Kit."

(and I don't like Macs. ;) )

Re:GECK?

[Mindcontrolled]

Slightly offtopic - but this is just about the only point where the German translation of Fallout 3 shines. They call it the "Garten Eden Erstellungs-Kit" here - abbreviated GEEK.

Re:GECK?

[Chris Burke]

I'd lobby for it to be called the Garden of Eden Creation Kit, but there might be fallout from that decision...

Yeah, in particular it would be highly impractical for the astronauts to walk around the biodome wearing only fig leaves to cover their naughty bits, since fig trees would be highly impractical to grow at least at first!

Re:GECK?

[notjustchalk]

Ha, that's certainly somewhat more appropriate. However, I think the GECK was introduced in Fallout 2, IIRC.
Also, didn't the German version have all sorts of censorship - ie. no children in the game, less violence etc? Such silliness.

Re:GECK?

[Mindcontrolled]

Hehe, well, the German censorship crap was easily patched out. It was basically just less violence.

Re:How, exactly?

[Locke2005]

Never let the facts stand in the way of a good anti-Obama rant!

Obama's strategy, which increases NASA's budget by $6 billion over the next five years, looks to commercial space vehicles to take over the role of transporting astronauts to and from low Earth orbit and focuses the agency's efforts on technologies that will take explorers to destinations beyond the Moon.

Canceling Constellation != "draining the lifeblood out of every avenue of manned exploration", and in fact, Obama is increasing NASA's budget!

going to Mars in the 2020s is as likely

[peter303]

as a Black man elected President.

Current Date + 20

[dmgxmichael]

Nixon and Ford targeted Mars by the end of the millennium. Reagan targeted it at or around this year. Clinton said by 2020 - Obama pushes it to 2030.

It's always going to be Current date + 20. I've lost hope.

Re:Current Date + 20

[Anonymous Coward]

Nixon and Ford targeted Mars by the end of the millennium. Reagan targeted it at or around this year. Clinton said by 2020 - Obama pushes it to 2030.

It's always going to be Current date + 20. I've lost hope.

Nonsense, we'll get to Mars as soon as we perfect fusion power!

Re:Current Date + 20

[Skarecrow77]

you're actually right on the money.

It's a 10 year project, no more. If we target a longer development cycle, politics will interfere.

We're quite lucky that Kennedy targeted "this decade" for the moon landing, giving us 9 years to get there. Nixon and congress were already guttong apollo by the time we actaully landed on the moon. If kennedy had said "1979" instead, then by 1969 we would have just been finishing up the mercury flights as the entire program was canceled.

Re:Current Date + 20

[Anonymous Coward]

Just let private corporations handle it. The government can't do anything right, anyway, as we all know on Slashdot. Why aren't you up in arms about your tax dollars being wasted? Let the marketplace decide.

Of course the bacteria survived

[CptPicard]

They had beer. I could do that.

The Beer rocks are home to a broad spectrum of microbes, including photosynthesising cyanobacteria. "We thought it would be fun to send Beer into space," says Olsson-Francis.

Re:Pot

[Jeng]

Pot, aka Marijuana. One of the most useful plants on the planet, of course its going to Mars with us.

Very glad you could point that out to us Mr. Trout.

if we survive here, we'll be able to eat tar

[Anonymous Coward]

&/or other emollients. it's already all planned.

greed, fear & ego (in any order) are unprecedented evile's primary weapons. those, along with deception & coercion, helps most of us remain (unwittingly?) dependent on its' life0cidal hired goons' agenda. most of our dwindling resources are being squandered on the 'wars', & continuation of the billionerrors stock markup FraUD/pyramid schemes. nobody ever mentions the real long term costs of those debacles in both life & any notion of prosperity for us, or our children. not to mention the abuse of the consciences of those of us who still have one. see you on the other side of it. the lights are coming up all over now. the fairytail is winding down now. let your conscience be our guide. you can be more helpful than you might have imagined. we now have some choices. meanwhile; don't forget to get a little more oxygen on your brain, & look up in the sky from time to time, starting early in the day. there's lots going on up there.

'The current rate of extinction is around 10 to 100 times the usual background level, and has been elevated above the background level since the Pleistocene. The current extinction rate is more rapid than in any other extinction event in earth history, and 50% of species could be extinct by the end of this century. While the role of humans is unclear in the longer-term extinction pattern, it is clear that factors such as deforestation, habitat destruction, hunting, the introduction of non-native species, pollution and climate change have reduced biodiversity profoundly.' (wiki)

"I think the bottom line is, what kind of a world do you want to leave for your children," Andrew Smith, a professor in the Arizona State University School of Life Sciences, said in a telephone interview. "How impoverished we would be if we lost 25 percent of the world's mammals," said Smith, one of more than 100 co-authors of the report. "Within our lifetime hundreds of species could be lost as a result of our own actions, a frightening sign of what is happening to the ecosystems where they live," added Julia Marton-Lefevre, IUCN director general. "We must now set clear targets for the future to reverse this trend to ensure that our enduring legacy is not to wipe out many of our closest relatives."

"The wealth of the universe is for me. Every thing is explicable and practical for me .... I am defeated all the time; yet to victory I am born." --emerson

no need to confuse 'religion' with being a spiritual being. our soul purpose here is to care for one another. failing that, we're simply passing through (excess baggage) being distracted/consumed by the guaranteed to fail illusionary trappings of man'kind'. & recently (about 3000 years ago) it was determined that hoarding & excess by a few, resulted in negative consequences for all.

consult with/trust in your creators. providing more than enough of everything for everyone (without any distracting/spiritdead personal gain motives), whilst badtolling unprecedented evile, using an unlimited supply of newclear power, since/until forever. see you there?

"If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land." )one does not need not to agree whois in charge to grasp the notion that there may be some assistance available to us(

boeing, boeing, gone.

What do we need to go to Mars for

[yerktoader]

when we can ask Ziggy and The Spiders all about it?

Mid-2030s?

[KharmaWidow]

Obama makes more promises than there are stars in the sky! As with every proceeding president, planning for events beyond one's term is irrelevant bull-pucky. If a president wants to actually make something happen, it has to happen within in his two terms.

Instead of pursuing an unproven trajectory for our space industry, we who should go back to the moon first. We have the technology to do that and it can be assembled quickly.

The benefit of reaching the moon again is two-fold.
1) We prevent other nations from dominating and dictating the space industry (There are about 16 nations with declared moon-ambitions)
2) We study and prepare the moon for other solar system exploration.

Experts say using the moon as a launching station will save tons of money on fuel and materials. Vessels launched from the moon do not need to survive the stress of the Earth's atmosphere. The moon has the potential to provide some of the necessary resources. Additionally, vessels launched from the moon can use nuclear propulsion systems since they won't be a threat to the Earth and the Earth's atmosphere.

As a general rule from experience, any promise from a president beyond his terms is an empty promise because the next president will simply cancel it as Obama, himself, has done.

I wanna be one of the first people to go!!

[Anonymous Coward]

I wanna be one of the first people to go!! I'd LOVE to live in a man-made biosphere on the red planet. Everything I need: bacteria, oxygen, plants, water. Now, if only we can develop faster-than-light communications. I think the latency would be a little too high for me to play an MMORPG from there :( I want fast Internet access to be able to do lots of gaming! Would be nice to have something to do while I'm munching on Martian-grown weeds!

Mars ....

[xednieht]

It's not only a red planet, but a red herring as well.

The U.S. is broke, there''s no end in sight to the deficit spending, most people reading this have a lower chance of collecting the social security they are paying into than getting veggies to sprout on mars.

If the President and others can't find enough to do on this planet then I would suggest starting a private enterprise and use their own capital to fund it - just leave tax payers out of this stupidity.

Space first, then planets maybe

[minstrelmike]

Let's get into outer space first and try living there, inside a hollowed asteroid or a manufactured self-supporting space station. Once we figure out how to do that and have the actual colony successful enough to spawn a new colony, we may realize planets are where space-faring races are born, but not where they live.

Gravity wells just add cost without benefit.

Re:How, exactly?

[CrimsonAvenger]

Canceling Constellation != "draining the lifeblood out of every avenue of manned exploration", and in fact, Obama is increasing NASA's budget!

NASA's budget now is $18.7 billion per year.

Assuming he's going to increase it every year for the next five years, he's planning on increasing it at about 2% per year.

Which is rather lower than last year's inflation rate. So the inflation adjusted budget will be lower each year, not higher...

Note, for reference, that the State Department got a 40% increase in budget this past year....

Re:How, exactly?

[Locke2005]

Increasing it by 2% every year for the next 5 years would be a $1.87 billion increase, not a $6 billion increase. $6 billion over 5 years would be a 6.4% increase per year, which, although small, is higher than inflation.

Look, you can't have it both ways: you can't blast Obama for spending too much and running up a deficit, and simultaneously blast him for not spending enough on NASA! The facts are that the deficit needs to be reduced, and everybody is going to feel some pain from that.

Pure Fantasy

[strangelovian]

Manned Mars mission by 2030? LOOOOL! Is this before or after the fusion-powered rocket cars? Folks, no one is going to Mars. Our life and civilization-support systems are failing rather badly on this lush blue planet and people think we’re going to go live in a dead, brutally harsh place like Mars? Think again... I agree with the poster who suggested we try colonizing Antarctica first -- it’s orders of magnitude cheaper and easier. Manned spaceflight will remain science fiction for the foreseeable future because the economic justification isn’t there -- no one can afford it. Pull your heads out of your video-game fantasy worlds kids, we’re much more likely to be living in a Mad Max Dark Age in 2030 than on Mars!

This is just stupid

[ITJC68]

Obama kills the constellation program and then starts a new initiative. Is this so he can claim it was his plan instead of Bush's? Sorry but I don't buy it. Fund NASA fully and return the funding for constellation and get back on track. The US should not have to rely on a foreign power to get us to the space station we financed a large chunk of. Extend the shuttle missions to keep things going if we have to. NASA has been one of the best things to come from the US and to mothball it to the point of working on Toyota's mystery gas pedal issue is just an insult.

Gaia II

[argStyopa]

Considering the laughable failure that was Biosphere II, I'd say we have a LONG, LONG way to go before we

We can build habitable environments, but self-sustaining is at least a whole order of magnitude beyond us today.

Re:Gaia II

[Jarnin]

Biosphere II was a failure because it's inhabitant's lives weren't on the line. The sponsors weren't going to lose face due to their employees dying. That meant that it was only a half-hearted attempt at a self-sufficiency experiement.

What we really need is a Biosphere III to be built in orbit. That way when the crew starts running out of air, they'll have a reason to fix the problem instead of saying "well, we could just open a window".

Re:Gaia II

[argStyopa]

No, what we need is a BioSphere that's sponsored and run as a science experiment, not as a faux-scientific arthouse project by post-hippie dilettantes.

Myoglobin makes meat red and white, not blood.

[postermmxvicom]

red meat is red because it still has blood in it (while white meat is white because the blood has been drained)

From Wikipedia:

Meat can be broadly classified as "red" or "white" depending on the concentration of myoglobin in muscle fibre. When myoglobin is exposed to oxygen, reddish oxymyoglobin develops, making myoglobin-rich meat appear red. The redness of meat depends on species, animal age, and fibre type: Red meat contains more narrow muscle fibres that tend to operate over long periods without rest, while white meat contains more broad fibres that tend to work in short fast bursts.

The catch

[Anonymous Coward]

Mars has 95% CO2, which is toxic to most plants (anything above 2000ppm CO2 on Earth is), and the density of the atmospheric gasses is lower than Earth. Second biggest problem is a shortage of water, needed for basalt microbes, and subsequent other forms of life. Third problem is temperature, which is partially solved by taking care of the first two.

So, screw fertilizer. We need to chuck ice at the planet until there's an abundance of water. Then, life would probably start on its own (if we wanted to wait a couple million years).

Elon Musk's "Mars Oasis" idea

[FleaPlus]

There's actually an interesting story, retold in a recent NY Times article, about Elon Musk's desire to launch a greenhouse to Mars in the early 2000s. When he realized that launch costs would dominate, he decided to create SpaceX instead to bring down those costs. I wonder if Elon Musk still hopes to carry out his original plan, though:

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/16/science/16elon.html?pagewanted=2

Mr. Musk said he did not set out to be a rocket manufacturer. Rather, with some of the millions of dollars he reaped from the sale of PayPal to eBay, he wanted to send a small greenhouse to Mars -- a private science experiment to see if Earth plants could grow in Martian soil. Beyond the science, he said he thought the sight of a green plant on Mars would capture people's imagination and reinvigorate interest in space.

"I could get all that down to several million dollars," he said. But a rocket to get Mars Oasis off the ground was expensive. At the time, in 2001, a Delta II rocket would have cost $65 million, Mr. Musk said. He made three trips to Moscow to look at a refurbished Russian intercontinental ballistic missile. But even that would have required the development of a third stage to get into space.

He wondered whether it would make more sense to build his own rockets, and he started talking to people in the rocket business, including Dr. Diamandis. "I was actually trying to talk him out of it," Dr. Diamandis recalled, "because I said, 'You know, it's going to take two or three times as long as you think it is, and it's going to cost you two or three times as much.' The reality is it has taken him longer, and it has cost him more than he expected, but I'm extraordinarily thankful he didn't take my advice."

Starter Kit eh?

[DarthVain]

Was this "Starter Kit" donated by Amsterdam?

Seriously though if they are gonna grow anything on Mars they should defiantly grow weed. Call it Martian Green... (or maybe it would be red?)!

I have heard (not sure if it is just hippy propaganda) that hemp is one of the best producers of Oxygen in the plant world for the amount of space it takes up.

Re:How, exactly?

[Garrett Fox]

He's saying we're going to seriously pencil in a Mars flyby, a mere 25 years from now, right? Sounds like a vague, very-long-term goal, especially coupled with cancellation of the manned rocket program we already were working on. Constellation wasn't very popular even within NASA, so it's not too bad to see that program canceled, but there was at least one successful early test of it. Now we've got nothing, and we're still going to have nothing for many years to come. There's also Obama's short-lived idea during the campaign to get more money for schools by putting Constellation off for five years. (Reach for the stars, kids!) So while not every detail of the plan is a bad idea, I read it as this president punting on space exploration. Bush at least tried to get us to the moon by 2020, with a specific eye on Mars after that.

What I'd do to make a worthwhile version of the proposal is say, "Time out. Cancel Constellation. Take five years off for basic tech development, like perfecting a nuclear rocket. But after that we're going to do a 10-year program to get humans on the way to Mars." It's within our power to do that, if the feds aren't busy trying to take over the economy and claim Pelosi's "essentially unlimited power" for Obama's stated purpose of "spreading the wealth around".

When will we see a real plan?

[Anonymous Coward]

There are only two groups with enough money to get us seriously into space: 1) The Military 2) Corporations Until one of them is put in charge of the whole thing everything else is mostly a waste of money due to the sheer insufficient scale of it.

We're spending way too much effort on exploration and show the flag missions which really have little follow on benefits except for some propaganda value. There needs to be a clear, defined benefit from the mission and it needs to be large. Here is a very simplistic example:

The Asteroid Eros contains enough precious metals that it was worth at least 20 TRILLION dollars circa 1999. Precious metals prices have roughly quadrupled since then. The total US debt is about $12.8 Trillion, so as long as the project costs less than 67.2 Trillion dollars we could go grab it, mine it, sell the metals, pay off the debt and have enough left over for everyone involved to make a killing. The rock left over would make a smashing place to put an orbital fortress to protect our satellite infrastructure. Why isn't the government putting together a combined military/corporate joint venture to tackle something like this?

The stimulus effect, technology spillover, employment surge and other side benefits would be so gigantic the US would probably extend it's role as a super-power for another 50 years on that basis alone.

OT: Barack Obama's mission

[mi]

What, exactly, do you consider to be the mission of Barack Obama?

His self-declared aim is to "Spread the Wealth" to ensure Equality of Results for everyone. Because our Equality of Opportunity is so bourgeoisies... I find it most alarming, because that equal result will never be good. All — as in 100% — of past attempts to make everyone equally rich have failed, and made everyone equally poor instead. Life will suck, and — for me, at least — the fact, that it sucks equally for most (not for all, of course, some people will remain more equal than others) will be of little consolation.

And how can you support him if you don't support what he wants to do?

The way Illiberals were able to "Support the troops, but not their mission", darling.

Re:How, exactly?

[Charcharodon]

Yes we can. He throws NASA a twenty in terms of money while at the same time backing up a dump truck full of cash to pour in the welfare crowd's pocket.

I would be screaming less at my Congressman if he voted for a 1.5 trillion increase in NASA's budget (I would still be screaming at him) since it would at least increase our access to space rather than just continue to support the ever growing numbers of useless people on planet Earth.

I would have also rather have seen both the Iraq and Afgan wars never happend (1 nuke each would have been sufficeint and cost effective for the problem), that too would have paid for a new ship for a moon/mars trip and a moon base.

Mars=fail planet

[Anonymous Coward]

Mars failed horribly to become a viable planet billions of years ago. It was not the lack of biology that let to its demise, but rather geology. Mars lacks the requisite magnetic shielding to make it protective enough of its hydrogen content. Without this shielding, cosmic radiation is free to strip hydrogen from molecules and send it adrift where it gets blow into space.

Was there lots of h2o on Mars? probably. Where did it go? Hydrogen is a precious commodity. Stars don't make hydrogen and you're not going to get it back easily. So now what? Will we export water to mars so that it has the required water content for life? Mars should be mined

If I learned anything from watching Doctor Who...

[avatar139]

...it's this: when you're visiting Mars don't drink the water (or use martian water for your gardens)!

Re:How, exactly?

[Locke2005]

If by "welfare crowd" you mean AIG, Bear Stearns, BofA, Citigroup, GM, and Chrysler, than I might agree with you.

Look, we don't get to decide to what ends our mandatory taxes are applied. Personally, I'd love to see a series of checkboxes on my 1040 letting me specify what my taxes get spent on, but that isn't going to happen.

The reasons nukes haven't been used in the last 60 years is because to do so would cause more problems than it would solve.

Re:How, exactly?

[Charcharodon]

"Our" mandatory taxes, that's a laugh. I'm one of a handfull of the guys that work that actually pays taxes. Everyone else qualifies for the "breeder" refund, aka parents and get more back than they pay in.

I'm more than a little upset with the current situation. I hardly qualify as "wealthy" and I'm getting hammered with State and Federal taxes because I'm single with no kids, and now I'm being told that I owe even more by our President in the name of Social Justice. It pisses me off to no end.

I would vote for any politician that would give me the option of picking on where my taxes go.

Coffee in the kit...

[Julz]

Hope they stick some fresh coffee into the kit. When they've brewed all the coffee then they can use with the soil to add Nitrogen :)

I say just terraform the whole place

[Skapare]

Who cares about three-eyed monsters. Snuff 'em.

Poor baby!

[Locke2005]

You do realize that the per-child deduction pales compared to the actual annual cost of feeding, clothing, and buying other supplies for a child, don't you? (To say nothing of repairing the damage they do.) Personally, I had a lot more disposable income BEFORE I got a wife and kids that spend all my money. Now I make more, but have nothing to spend on myself.

Re:Poor baby!

[Charcharodon]

Uh that's like saying that I should have to pay for other people's drug habit or covering the medical expenses for the morbidly obese that can't say no to an all you can eat buffet.

Oh wait I'm going to be paying for those in the near future too!

Not happy at all.

Asparagus

[Anonymous Coward]

I thought they found that martian soil can grow at least some plants (like asparagus) without any modification. They found the soil was quite rich with the necessary nutrients, not at all hostile to plant life.
There is an article here: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/martian-soil-good-enough-for-asparagus-855993.html

Re:Pot

[Anonymous Coward]

They'd eat all of their rations in the first week.

But you all know this will never happen, right?

[VShael]

I mean, the country can barely afford to feed and clothe itself right now, and is rapidly moving to the point where the mere interest on the debt owed, will be unpayable.

This is the biggest "look at the shiny shiny!" moment to come out of DC, since, well, since the last Great Distractor in Chief said we were going to Mars.

Re:How, exactly?

[JimFive]

If you're working someplace where "everyone" is getting the refundable earned income credit, then your employer is part of the problem, as are you for supporting em. Pay a living wage to people and they don't qualify for that credit. Even if they don't qualify for the refundable credit, if you are working at a place where "everyone" is getting all of their withholding refunded, that's still a problem with the wages that your employer is paying.
--
JimFive

Re:How, exactly?

[CrimsonAvenger]

Increasing it by 2% every year for the next 5 years would be a $1.87 billion increase, not a $6 billion increase. $6 billion over 5 years would be a 6.4% increase per year, which, although small, is higher than inflation.

You missed the fine print. It didn't say $6 billion per year, it said $6 billion over five years.

I assumed that it wasn't going to be a $1.2 billion increase this year followed by no increases the other four years to get my figures. If you'd rather assume things your way, go ahead, but note that your way includes an increase this year only, and no increases for the following years, where I assumed an increase compared to the previous year every year of the five years.