'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.'"

Comments

Fight Club was right

[Monkeedude1212]

When deep space exploration ramps up, it'll be the corporations that name everything, the IBM Stellar Sphere, the Microsoft Galaxy, Planet Starbucks.

Advertising!

[TechyImmigrant]

Advertising!
The best way to make an expensive thing look cheap.

Re:Mission to Colonize Mars Greatest Adventure?

[khallow]

The few ones going to Mars will do it at the expense of the entire living humans left back with their problems and much less ressources to solve them.

Fair trade. Keep in mind that the humans left on Earth have serious problems because they don't attempt to solve them, not because they don't have the resources to solve them.

Re:Levine edited it not wrote it

[Lord Ender]

Are you nuts? A Mars landing would have FAR more viewers than any sporting event. Hell, most people don't even know the rules of American football! And to keep funding a mars program going forward, you could sell the rights to sporting events on Mars where the gravity is much lower... but really, there would be a land rush as rich guys and hedge funds all scramble to purchase Mars real estate after colonization has been demonstrated to be possible.

Um, why?

[Elbereth]

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?

Re:Um, why?

[MightyMartian]

At the moment I can't think of a better one than laying the groundwork. There aren't really a lot of compelling reasons to go beyond near Earth orbit. But like I said in another post, at some point, and no one knows when, the cost of extracting certain key resources will go up enough that people will begin eying the rest of the Solar System. It isn't going to happen today, and it's probably not going to happen in a hundred years, but it will happen eventually, and by laying the groundwork for that, we enable future generations to start accessing resources in the rest of the Solar System.

Re:Um, why?

[BadEvilYoda]

Here's a good answer. At the moment, all of humanity's eggs are in one, and some might argue very fragile, basket. We're exactly one extinction level event away from going the way of the dinosaurs. I agree that another "boots and flags" mission is fairly pointless. But setting up a long-term viable colony on the moon, or Mars, such that the human race has a chance at surviving even if some catastrophe was to happen to Earth, seems like a pretty decent idea. If Shoemaker-Levy 9 had Earth in its crosshairs instead of Jupiter - we had absolutely no chance of stopping it. And, if you want to go out out on an even longer timescale - the sun isn't going to be here forever. Of course, hopefully by that time we will be well past the point of using chemical rockets, etc. But, babysteps... get off this rock first.

venus is a better target for colonization

[circletimessquare]

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:

Despite the harsh conditions on the surface, the atmospheric pressure and temperature at about 50 km to 65 km above the surface of the planet is nearly the same as that of the Earth, making its upper atmosphere the most Earth-like area in the Solar System, even more so than the surface of Mars. Due to the similarity in pressure and temperature and the fact that breathable air (21% oxygen, 78% nitrogen) is a lifting gas on Venus in the same way that helium is a lifting gas on Earth, the upper atmosphere has been proposed as a location for both exploration and colonization.[11]

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

Re:venus is a better target for colonization

[khallow]

But there is the crippling counter argument. Mars has ground. Everything you build on Venus either has to be built from the atmosphere or imported. It also can't be too dense that it won't float. That greatly limits what you can do.

Re:venus is a better target for colonization

[Cyberax]

Mars has a LOT of hydrogen, in the form of good old H2O.

Venus is a dead end. Sure, you can make floating cities, but HOW would you do this? Venus has no satellites to mine and conditions on the surface are waay too extreme.

Re:Step 1: Think of a rational reason.

[perpenso]

Really, what's on Mars that can't be done more cheaply by building near earth orbital environments?

The real estate to spread a colony upon. 1/3 gravity would be healthier. Local water is pretty damn nice too. Easier construction environment, simpler building designs, etc.