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'Colonizing the Red Planet,' a How-To Guide
Velcroman1 writes "A manned mission to Mars would be the greatest adventure in the history of the human race. And one man knows how to make it a reality. In fact, he just wrote the book on it — literally. Joel Levine, senior research scientist with NASA's Langley Research Center and co-chair of NASA's Human Exploration of Mars Science Analysis Group, just published 'The Human Mission to Mars: Colonizing the Red Planet.' The book reads like a who's who of Mars mission science, featuring senators, astronauts, astrophysicists, geologists and more on getting to Mars, studying its atmosphere and climate, the psychological and medical effects on the crew and other details. The most interesting bit: Levine presents is a solution for funding the trip, something unprecedented for NASA: advertising. 'The suggestion is marketing to different corporations and professional sports leagues for advertising, which is something NASA never does.'"
When deep space exploration ramps up, it'll be the corporations that name everything, the IBM Stellar Sphere, the Microsoft Galaxy, Planet Starbucks.
How much does it cost to (re-)name Mars?
I will create a sig when innovation restarts in the U.S.
Advertising!
The best way to make an expensive thing look cheap.
Evil people are out to get you.
I think Mars For Dummies is the definitive reference at this time.
It's not a red planet, it's a native-american planet !! Kum on hear the noize !!
You mean like actually going into space?
Just saying.
So the new shuttles will have decals on them like NASCAR? Will we hear over the radios "Houston, we have a problem, but first a message from our sponsors"? Maybe every 10 minutes in the colony they play an announcement saying "This next 10 minutes of being able to breathe brought to you by $COMPANY".
I volunteer APK for first man on mars
You can never go back
Never underestimate the dark side of the Source
This is a collection of papers. Levin is credited in the article for other peoples' work. But at a glance, there looks to be a lot of great work there.
Further, I don't buy the slashdot summary claim that Mars exploration or settlement (using current cost basis) can be funded solely through advertising and sponsorship. Sure if one looks at something like the Superbowl, World Cup, or the Olympics, you see many billions of dollars a year changing hands. That sort of money should be enough to run a space program. The problem is that Mars exploration doesn't have the guaranteed high interest viewership on a regular basis. Sure the actual first landing will be a big draw. But not so much the second, or third, etc. A long term program will need continuous funding over long periods of time. There's nothing to offer comparable permanent excitement to the repeated extremely popular contests of media sports.
OTOH, such a thing could be good funding for a first mission or two, especially if cost of access to space should go down considerable.
For me, the most interesting part is section 9, "Mars Base, Exploration, and Colonization of the Red Planet". Any sort of long term human activity on Mars, be it some sort of scientific mission, a new hobby for the extremely wealthy, or somebody else, is going to have to solve the sorts of problems discussed in this section.
In that short lived tv show Defying Gravity, wasn't that how they secured a lot of funding? They would shoot video of them doing something for some company and the entire world would watch it because it was the most amazing mission the world had ever seen. Some people might consider that selling out the mission or the science. However, I say better to get there sometime in the next two decades riding on the collective backs of the commercial industry then get there sometime next century with the "no-strings attached" money of people's collective good will. We'll get there sooner this way, and we can all benefit from the resulting advances in knowledge and science.
No, It would be a HUGE Waste of Earthly Resources. The Yield would be Nil.(Period)
of the human race? A challenge, yes, but we pretty much know what mars is like. The discovery and conquest
of the new world was a far bigger adventure, with a lot more unknowns.
They don't want us to know: MJ WAS AN EXTRATERRESTRIAL. That's why they never convicted him, they KNEW he could terminate the Earth if he wanted. They finally murdered him. The Doc Will Walk!
Colonizing Mars is just silly. The atmospheric pressure is about 1% of Earth's. Enough to have sandstorms, not enough to be useful. And it's 95% carbon dioxide. If the pressure was higher, there'd be some hope of terraforming, but no.
The worst places on Earth are far easier to explore and colonize than Mars. Even Luna is easier to work with. A base on Luna is mostly a logistic problem; with enough lift capacity, it could be done today. But none of this will ever happen with chemical rockets, except as a nationalistic ego trip.
Face it. There's no good off-Earth real estate in this solar system.
Really, what's on Mars that can't be done more cheaply by building near earth orbital environments?
Please do not read this sig. Thank you.
Keep this book away from me! This guy's gonna spoil the next few episodes of Pioneer One for me if I'm not careful. D:
Let q be a radix > 1. I am in ur base-q, killing 10 d00ds.
All the computers will have to run Windows!
Blue screen of death will be literal.
There were 3 major reasons I voted for Obama:
1. Sensible universal health care. (semi-FAIL)
2. Maintain net neutrality. (semi-FAIL)
3. A JFK-esque speech to get us going to Mars. (TBD)
I know this is going to be a hugely unpopular opinion on Slashdot, but has anyone actually made a decent argument to answer why, instead of how? I've never heard one. People usually just stare at me, when I ask, then say something akin to, "Because it's there." or "You weren't alive when we landed on the moon. You just don't understand." Occasionally I hear something like, "It's an investment in science (or the tech industry)," which is much better than "you just don't get it", but still hardly a winning argument, in my opinion. I'm not against space travel, but I'd like to see some compelling arguments, rather than nerd rage.
And, yes, maybe I would have said the same thing about the European obsession with exploring the New World. So what? What good idea has ever suffered from a little debate?
for a number of reasons, not least of which its "fake" magnetosphere, which mars does not have:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atmosphere_of_Venus#Induced_magnetosphere
also note:
cloud city anyone?
living chambers or entire cities, pressurized to earth-friendly atmospherics, floating like balloons. with human-friendly gravity and a good-enough magnetosphere, and, on top of the clouds, a much nicer temperature (although the venusian day > venusian year! so you'd have a hot and cold cycle that's pretty dramatic)
still, all this points to life above the venusian clouds as something better than mars. colonial life, floating on the venusian cloudtops. on a number of merits, compared to mars, with much less atmosphere, no magnetosphere and paltry gravity to offer... venus comes out the superior choice. and then there's the closer solar proximity (power source anyone?)
one drawback to venus is it seems to boiled off most of its hydrogen. but mars seems to have done that too, so the deficiency is simply a problem with both mars and venus
overall, venus is the future folks, not mars
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
I agree that various powerful organizations, not all of them governments, can be counted on to stake out turf and use this for their own advantage. But
A.) There are plenty of powers other than corporations.
B.) Staking out turf doesn't need to be zero-sum or destructive. At least not for the next few decades.
There's no reason that Wisconsin can't arrange to send Official Wisconsin Cheese and Salmon to be used by Mars settlers in return for an endorsement. And U. W. has more than enough of a space science program to get a fifty kilo payload to mars orbit as long as it can survive slow/frugal trajectories and launch. Same for an Official UCLA remote filming rig. Which could fight for better coverage with ILM and Digital Domain roving camera rigs. Or New Zealand Wool Mission staff sweaters. And so on.
And now that we have a version of IP 6.0 that works in space, there's no reason we can't set up shared parking orbits with traffic control, and shared taxiing from orbit, allowing portioned out tasks to do this in ways that don't have to be predatory.
And oh by the way, lots of that kind of stuff can get going with the tech that we have right now.
http://streetcarstospaceships.typepad.com/s2s/2008/09/no-more-waiting-lets-start-sending-supplies-to-mars-now.html
Oh boy, won't this be fun? Artist's conception...
Program Intellivision!
Colony should be able to sustain itself someday. Top temperature of -5 C does not look like some place that can sustain people from planet Earth. They might be able spend some time there, but they won't last for long without supplies coming from Earth. I am even not sure if Mars atmospheric pressure level allows humans to breath without aids. Forget all Sci-Fi movies that you saw and look for better planet.
There were 3 major reasons I voted for Obama: ... 3. A JFK-esque speech to get us going to Mars. (TBD)
That was a Bush goal. The Obama goal is to let private enterprise go to space so government can focus on social issues here on earth. JFK bears little resemblance to modern democrats, he would be a blue dog democrat by today's standards.
When deep space exploration ramps up, it'll be the corporations that name everything, the IBM Stellar Sphere, the Microsoft Galaxy, Planet Starbucks.
That will buy old Bill a lawsuit from Mars:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galaxy_(chocolate)
Red heads to the red planet!
When deep space exploration ramps up, it'll be the corporations that name everything ...
Of course privatizing space will lead to corporate naming. Keeping to a more scientific naming scheme is one of the advantages of government leadership in space exploration. If government abdicates that role then corporations will fill that vacuum.
The Sex in Space article is interesting but seems to read as if it is from the 1960's. Many monkey studies are quoted. I thought psychology had advanced beyond this point.
Wasn't this already done in a TV show or movie? They had setup cameras on the entire ship that was used to go to Mars, and were airing it as a Reality TV show with advertising spots, equipment / clothing etc with logos for more advertising, etc etc.
Anyone know the name? I don't think it made it past 2 episodes if it were a TV show.
Considering budget problems, a cheaper, and already being implemented, is to turn red an already colonized planet, like this one. Governments just dont need to do anything, and will be there by the end of the century.
This "book," or rather, this arranged collection of papers, can be read simply by clicking links on the web page in the summary. The only reason to buy it would be for the convenience of the printed form (at a $100 price!). No pdf or kindle version seems to be available.
A slashdotter who didn't build his own computer is like a Jedi who didn't build his own lightsaber.
The naming rights section just fuckin' killed me for its raw retardness about economics.
The reason a corporation pays $400m for the naming rights to a stadium is because there's a high level assurance the fucking thing will be built.
Selling rights to shit in a Mars mission has one fatal flaw: there's no proof the goddamned thing will ever happen. Only a complete dumbfuck or someone totally desperate to see their idea get off the ground would make this sales pitch without realizing the simple assurances that all corporations expect in exchange for their promotional consideration.
Space settlement will start occurring when the minerals crisis starts hitting here on Earth in about 20 to 30 years. And we're not gonna hit Mars -- it's going to be prospecting the asteroids for scarce minerals.
When your business model is "Shit! Corporations'll fall for any bullshit!" then you are legally required disclaim yourself as a dumbfuck in all future conversations.
I scream. You scream. I assume that means we're both acquainted with the problem. We proceed.
That website (Journal of Cosmology) is right up there with the worst ever designed.
In all seriousness, I think any World Cup would be more heavily viewed than a Mars landing. We're just not thinking very hard about the people we begrudgingly share this planet with. They like thems some soccer. Just sayin'.
Now, if the World Cup were held on Mars (The Off-world Cup?), then we're talkin' some numbers.
I scream. You scream. I assume that means we're both acquainted with the problem. We proceed.
Why is their site hosted on geocities?
Would be "The Planet Mars, sponsored by Sprint". You can't rename a whole planet -- people would forget where the story is set and start tuning out.
I scream. You scream. I assume that means we're both acquainted with the problem. We proceed.
The best way to make an expensive thing look cheap.
I totally agree, but I don't care how cheap it is if it gets us to Mars.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Colonizing Mars is a great idea, but we really need to do a little bit of research to make sure it is even possible. Before we invest a lot of time and energy into getting to Mars we need to build an orbital centrifuge to determine how much gravity is required for mammals and other life forms to be able to reproduce. If 1/3rd G is not enough for people to have babies then large centrifuge nurseries will have to be built for child rearing. If that is the case then it may be easier to colonize the asteroid belt or other bodies in the solar system with lower gravity and minimal atmosphere to make centrifugal nurseries easier.
Really, what's on Mars...
Mars.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Eventually humans need to expand off planet. The sooner that is done the better.
Do you keep offsite backups? Same philosophy.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Balloons. Nitrogen/Oxygen atmosphere is less dense than a high CO2 atmosphere at the same pressure. Therefore a bubble of breathable air would float in Venus's atmosphere.
And at about 50km altitude (about 10,000 rods), atmospheric pressure is 1atm, temperature range is 0-50deg C.
Sky cities.
Science is all about firing a drunk pig out of a cannon just to see what happens.
the point is there is very little ice on mars
Compared to Earth perhaps.
But there's a huge amount there if you are talking about a colony, and probably quite a lot more to be had with some digging.
I admire your thinking but a ground based habitat is way safer and less prone to disaster. A floating city sounds awesome until we stumble across something like a rare Venusian maelstrom in the upper atmosphere that wipes out anything floating...
Basically, if we're going to go off and wrestle with another planet we need to start with something weaker than us, not stronger.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Great, another penal colony full of criminals and malcontents.
The mind conceives, the body achieves, the spirit manifests.
Oops. Didn't see Circle's comment.
Science is all about firing a drunk pig out of a cannon just to see what happens.
A small nuclear reactor could provide plenty of heat for any colonists, and there are a lot of raw materials on Mars. -5c isn't great to support life just ambling around, but with intelligence and applied material science it would work just fine.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Forget advertising, a porn based reality show would easily pay for the whole thing. Millions would pay to see sex in space.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
A near Earth orbital environment cannot be a self sustaining colony. Mars can. The project will capture the imagination of the world, well at least the imagination of those who have one. It will inspire a generation, probably several generations to become scientists and engineers. It will drive the development of nearly every type of technology to meet the challenges. It should be done, not because it will be easy but because it will be hard. It's time for humanity to take a lasting step into the rest of the universe. It's time for some of us to begin to make a life off this Earth.
But the main reason is this. I want to go there, and that will be much easier if someone else goes first and builds a hotel with a nice view.
"I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the Moon and returning him safely to Earth. No single space project in this period will be more impressive to mankind, or more important in the long-range exploration of space; and none will be so difficult or expensive to accomplish." -JFK
-- QED
create a new Mars based society that is free of our monetary system. wait, what?
Why don't we colonize the moon first? Its closer to Earth then Mars, we found ice water to drink, we can get back to Earth quicker if something goes terribly wrong, we can make Hydrogen from H20 to power our machines. Am I wrong?
Then I will not be one of the early adopters to see how well
they run something they have never done before.
google "32 trillion offshore needs IRS attention"
Assuming a large liquid water ocean, Europa seems like a better option.
Huge amounts of water to drink, protect from radiation/meteors, make oxygen etc
63+ moons to explore and mine.
A new life awaits you in the Off-World colonies. The chance to begin again in a golden land of opportunity and adventure...New climate, recreational facilities...absolutely free. Use your new friend as a personal body servant or a tireless field hand -- the custom tailored genetically engineered humanoid replicant designed especially for your needs. So come on America, let's put our team up there...Let's go to the colonies.
This announcement is brought to you by the Shimato Dominguez Corporation - helping America into the New World.
W was as interested in getting Mars or the Moon as reagan was in balancing the budget or Hitler in saving jews. The fact is that W announced it and then did NOTHING. In fact, he proposed the worse drain on NASA that has ever occurred which was Constellation.
Obama was returning NASA to what it used to: Innovative work. To do so requires using private money to do the majority of the work.
And to be fair, JFK was a blue dog, but he very love private enterprise, and supported various new programs. For starters, he produced the peace corp. Likewise, he started the civil rights program as well as Medicare. Johnson finished the programs, but it was JFK that started these.
Windbourne (moderating)
We Martians would like to remind you of that famous Earthling work "The War of the Worlds".
We could not succeed in our invasion and settlement of Earth because of your Earth's microbes and diseases.
We don't look forward to our new Earthling Overlords, and remind you that we have our own microbes and diseases.
That's a nice looking planet you have. Pity if anything were to happen to it...
I am anarch of all I survey.
Doesn't anyone RTFA anymore? Richard C Hoagland is one of the cited authors in the article about terraforming Mars.
http://journalofcosmology.com/Mars102.html (he says that NASA nuked Jupiter with Galileo!)
Most of the chapters were amazing and very scientific, but when I saw that name mentioned the whole document took a nose dive in credibility.
--M
# grep slashdot access.log | grep html | sort | uniq | wc -l 2604
Just FYI.
At what point are we scratching an itch that developed in such a different context that there is simply no rational way to justify it anymore?
You are mistaken in your belief that there is no evolutionary advantage to colonizing beyond earth, that we have moved beyond the context of survival. A species with a single habitat, earth in this case, is more vulnerable than a species with multiple habitats. A large enough asteroid or a large enough volcanic eruption could wipe out the species. As an asteroid did for the dinosaurs and as a volcano nearly did for humanity in the past. Our species may have *barely* survived a "recent" event:
"The Toba supereruption (Youngest Toba Tuff or simply YTT[1]) occurred between 69,000 and 77,000 years ago at Lake Toba (Sumatra, Indonesia), and it is recognized as one of the earth's largest known eruptions. The related catastrophe theory holds that this supervolcanic event plunged the planet into a 6-to-10-year volcanic winter, which resulted in the world's human population being reduced to 10,000 or even a mere 1,000 breeding pairs, creating a bottleneck in human evolution."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toba_catastrophe_theory
Regardless of if it is a web site or traveling to Mars, if someone says something is to be funded by advertising, what they mean is they don't know how to get the money.
It is likely that the economy overspends on advertising by a large degree. Most of it is in untracked, and Google and others succeed with relatively limited tracking - just showing someone looked at something, not tracking it back to sales at all.
Given the unpaid externalities of advertising -- for example, not being able to find the site you are looking for in the first page of search results, and slow loading web pages crapped up with ads, etc -- we should not encourage this type of behavior, and when two equal options are available, choose the one less advertised.