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Richard Branson 'Determined To Start a Population On Mars'
RocketAcademy writes "British billionaire Richard Branson, whose Virgin Galactic company is backing the development of SpaceShip Two, has told CBS News he is 'determined to start a population on Mars.' He said, 'I think over the next 20 years, we will take literally hundreds of thousands of people to space and that will give us the financial resources to do even bigger things. That will give us the resources then to put satellites into space at a fraction of the price, which can be incredibly useful for thousands of different reasons.' Branson isn't the only billionaire interested in the Red Planet. Elon Musk, founder of Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX), wants to put humans on Mars in the next 12 to 15 years."
Familiar with Branson's previous shenanigans, I must wonder: does he intend to impregnate all the women before they leave for / on the way to Mars?
I like (no, love!) the idea of colonists living in space.
On the other hand, has this man taken even a cursory glance at the spreadsheets before making such pronouncements?
For that many people, we're talking more money than he, Gates, and four other random billionaires combined have.
Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
Get ready for endless bitching about network latency.
If your bitterest enemies are people who hack the heads off civilians, then I would say you're doing something right.
Algae?
Waterbears grown in a vat exposed to raw solar radiation in transit, collected and baked into a protein paste?
As long as you get rid of the notion of bigmacs and fries, and are willing to settle for "nutritious", things aren't so bad.
feed them things that are easy to grow and genetically modify,
yeast cheap easy and fast growing
algae is another great option and can be used to make clean air
fungus is another posibility
some plants would be easy to grow in a hydroponics system - lots of sprouts, and roots/ tubers(potatos, ginger, carrots, ect) and bamboo shoots can be grown repetitively quickly
---Saying gnome 3 is better than windows 8 not so much a compliment as it is damning with light praise.
Everything else about this man, his wealth, or his goals aside - this is a good thing. A great thing. Having people with the resources to make progress pushing us to get off our dumpy human butts and really settle space beyond our own planet is going to be a net win for our species. It will lead to more jobs, advances in technology, advances in art (I can't wait to read the first poems written by native Martians!). We'll up our chances of surviving a number of extinction level events, and edge ourselves ever closer to exploring beyond our tiny little solar system. To get us started, it just takes an insane impulse, strong will, and the resources to burn. Full speed ahead!
You create a biodome. Which we haven't done successfully on Earth, let alone in space.
Compelling reasons: well, for starters, that colony would be insurance against an extinction-level asteroid impact here on Earth. So there's that.
I think wanting Mars-tronauts to be "productive" and whinging about the cost and the "enormous expense of keeping them alive" somewhat disqualifies you from this conversation. Humans moving beyond the confines of Earth is Manifest Destiny. It's inevitable. Man must always have frontiers, else, he is not Man.
Also, Richard Branson isn't requiring you to bless his spreadsheet, because his effort is privately funded. No one asked you if you thought it would be profitable.
(I'm all for renewables, but you can't demand that private individuals pay for solar panels for all of us. Realistically, it's probably a reasonable thing for an obscenely rich guy to do with his own money. He could be blowing it influencing elections or any number of worse things. Use your imagination.)
How can you not love this guy?
He's great at publicity. Let's talk Mars when he's got people doing regular low-orbit flights.
"The Marching Morons" is a science fiction story written by Cyril M. Kornbluth, originally published in Galaxy in April 1951. It was included in The Science Fiction Hall of Fame, Volume Two after being voted one of the best novellas up to 1965.
The story is set hundreds of years in the future: the date is 7-B-936. John Barlow, a man from the past put into suspended animation by a freak accident involving a dental drill and anesthesia, is revived in this future. The world seems mad to Barlow until Tinny-Peete explains the Problem of Population: Due to a combination of intelligent people not having children and excessive breeding by less intelligent people, the world is full of morons, with the exception of an elite few who work slavishly to keep order. Barlow, who was a shrewd real estate con man in his day, has a solution to sell to the elite, in exchange for being made World Dictator.
...
Barlow derives a solution based on his experience in scamming people into buying worthless land and knowledge of lemmings' mass migration into (and subsequent drowning in) the sea: convince the morons to travel to Venus in spaceships that will kill their passengers once they fly out of view of land (possibly, the story implies, because they are built by morons, though obtaining consistent destruction in the proper flight phase might be beyond their competence). (The story predates the Moon landing, and the safety of future space travel is summed up in a description of a rocket that crashed on the moon.) Propaganda depicts Venus as a tropical paradise, with "blanket trees," "ham bushes," and "soap roots." In a nationalistic frenzy, every country tries to send as many of their people to Venus as possible to stake their claim.
Barlow's help includes using his knowledge of Nazi propaganda tactics. Fake postcards are sent from the supposedly happy new residents of Venus to relatives left behind, describing the wonderful, easy life — in the same way as fraudulent postcards were sent to relatives of those imprisoned in the Nazi work-camps.
XML is a known as a key material required to create SMD: Software of Mass Destruction
And my answer will be, "Where do I sign!?"
Don't worry. Once they solve the "there isn't any air" problem, the "there isn't any magnetosphere" problem, the "there isn't any water problem", and the "there isn't any soil" problem they will easily be able to whip up some FTL communications tech.
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What exactly are you going to need money for? I'm guessing that beer and hookers will not be available until the Wongs arrive, and there won't be much else in the way of luxuries. Even food variety will probably be about zero.
Compelling reasons: well, for starters, that colony would be insurance against an extinction-level asteroid impact here on Earth.
Aside from the small area that gets turned in a crater, everywhere on Earth post-impact will be more habitable than anywhere on Mars.
Even given a hypothetical event that somehow sterilizes the Earth, a Mars colony will only save you if they can be completely self sufficient. That means they need to be able to produce every piece of technology needed to keep the colony going from raw materials. Chips from sand. Metals would need to be extracted from mines on Mars. Chemicals produced from, perhaps, biological sources. (On Earth, most start from oil, and sometimes coal and natural gas. None of these exist on Mars)
The required population to do all that is probably in the millions.
Your contract will probably be the equivalent of: "You work for us for 30 years for crappy pay in order to pay us back for transportation to Mars.
The pay is actually excellent. Buying oxygen at the company store, though...
Compelling reasons: well, for starters, that colony would be insurance against an extinction-level asteroid impact here on Earth. So there's that.
I think wanting Mars-tronauts to be "productive" and whinging about the cost and the "enormous expense of keeping them alive" somewhat disqualifies you from this conversation.
I believe that we absolutely should and must continue exploring the universe, continue with probes, satellites and occasionally maned space flight. However the idea of manifest destiny is purely ego. The universe doesn't need us. It won't miss us when we are gone whether we populated one planet or a trillion.
Our advancement and betterment is for our benefit alone. I can't really see how throwing ourselves off the planet on chemical rockets to live in tin cans leads to the betterment of anybody. It takes time, resources and energy from sciences that could have vastly greater long term benefits. Yes, it might help us get a head start on future engineering hurdles, and helps improve public interest, but frankly, the really interesting stuff is going to be happening down here on earth for a good while longer. If we bite it as a race, so what? If we don't, then we have only the benefits of our long-term investments to reap.
Exactly, I would be more than willing to work to pay my way to space at little to no pay, and if I were ever return to earth I would have on hell of a resume entry; though I would be more than willing to stay. Who gives fuck about pay and shitty hours and conditions, it's SPACE! My parents are friends with one of the engineers of the Canada armthe robotic arm used (formerly) on the space shuttle and space station he had the chance to go to space but his wife threatened to leave him if he went up so he stayed. I would still be kicking myself if I were him.
---Saying gnome 3 is better than windows 8 not so much a compliment as it is damning with light praise.
Mrs Branson not so keen.
systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
So you want to tax the guy more because he want to pay to build and research the technology and build the space craft to advance us as a species? this guy is wanting to do more for humanity than the government would do. They (the government) would simply put it in the general fund or squander it on a war or pork barrel funds for campaign contributers.
---Saying gnome 3 is better than windows 8 not so much a compliment as it is damning with light praise.
How can you not love this guy?
He's great at publicity. Let's talk Mars when he's got people doing regular low-orbit flights.
That's a completely retarded attitude.
These are LONG TERM development projects, think like 10 maybe 20 years before liftoff.
Waiting for the current coolness to be live and in production before starting development of the next one leads to lack of momentum and failure to kickstart the next project.
Visit CryptoGnome in his home.
The martian biodome does not need to be closed, in the explicit sense.
There is plenty of whispy CO2 on the surface of mars. This is an external source of both carbon and oxygen.
The real issue would be the hydrogen component, needed to increase water supplies. The hydrogen would likely have to come from mineral sources.
The issue with closed system biodomes is the absurd amounts of carbon and water needed in them before they reach homeostasis. (And no, the earth's soil is not in any natural danger. It is in danger of being carbon depleted by chemical fertilizer use, but chemical fertilizer is not natural. The earth can sustain life for many millions more years assuming humans don't wreck it before then. The earth wouldn't be "used up", it would be "sterilized". Very important difference.)
Here's a thought experiment for you.
We send 500 colonists to mars, to a site that has been robotically constructed in advance, per existing plans.
Enroute, the humans eat, and make sewerage. This sewerage is sequestered during the 6 month sojourn, and possibly run through a reclimation system, since water is both heavy and essential.
When the humans land, they have 6 months worth of poo and used toilet paper to use as an asset. Urine contains high levels of ammonium ion, and poo contains large quantities of organic sponge, and microbial forms. Once processed by the water reclimation system, you have very concentrated orgaic fertilizer. 90% of it should be heated to kill the microbes, for health reasons. The remaining 10% is added sparingly to mixed potting soil mixtures (washed martian soil mixed with the heated septic solids) to provide microbial flora at sensble levels. Plants are grown in it.
As the plants are grown, martian atmosphere is collected using air compressors, and delivered to the growing rooms. This provides additional carbon, which the growing plants incorporate into cellulose, sugars, and proteins. Humans eat this material, producing more poo. The poo is treated, and mixed with more washed martian dirt, and more plants are planted.
The raw martian dirt is contaminated with a "toxic" salt, called perchlorate. (A cation of chlorine and 4 oxygen, bound to a metal anion.) This mineral is very useful as an oxygen source. Simply heating it up liberates elemental oxygen, reducing the perchlorate salt to a standard chloride. Collection of the perchlorates could supply a considerale portion of the habitat's oxygen supply. (Again, an external source.) The removal of the perchlorate is required to use the soil fr horticulture, so the biproducts of collection and seperation are both directly useful to the colony. Dirt mining would be a regular staple of colony operation.
Clay minerals, and (if present, such as in the sulfur complexes like gypsum which were detected by the other rovers) hydrate minerals would provide the missing hydrogen component.
That just leaves nitrogen as the remaining "must have!" Dependency. Sending it to mars as liquified gas as part of the colony loadout is a no brainer, but 100% self sufficency would require a local (martian) source.
So far, I have not heard of any discoveries of ammonium salts, and atmospheric levels are laughable. However, there are such nitrate salts found in arrid regions of earth as natural soil minerals, so I hold out hope that mars would have them as well.
Insurance only makes sense if the premium is much much lower than the catastrophic event you're protecting against. For example, Google shows me an ad for life insurance: "Get $500,000 of Coverage For Only $21/Month". That makes sense, because the $500,000 protects your family against financial ruin, and you can afford the $21. A Mars colony protects against human extinction, which I would expect most people care about a great deal less than their families. Hell, at least one major religion embraces apocalypse, so their believers would presumably not be too worried about it.
Once hes staved to death what would be there left to eat?
A loop, by its nature, continues. If that didn't make sense, start reading this sentence again.
I would argue that a billionaire wanting to sink money into this when the technology isn't there yet, should be taxed higher so that the money can be directed towards more urgent things
So you want to tax a man higher for actually putting his money where his mouth is and pushing humanity forward? Versus the other members of the 1% that are just sitting on their money in FDIC insured accounts? At least he's putting skin in the game. I argue conversely that those who sit and do nothing should be taxed at a higher rate. Force them to put their money into ideas and plans, rather then cower under the skirt of the government they hate so much.
Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the (supposed) good of its victims may be the most oppressive
1) THE FUCKING SUN has all the elements that humans and plants need though nitrogen content is very low.
Obviously, I meant in a way and concentration that we could use it. Having barely detectable traces isn't equivalent.
2) Are your crops going to live underground too?
Several things to note. First, yes, they can be grown underground. There are several ways to provide light to them. Second, they're not going to become inedible merely because they've been exposed to radiation that has modest health consequences for humans.
3) There is nowhere near enough water on Mars. What is there is not readily available nor easily concentrated.
At the poles, there's plenty of water. And I imagine there's underground water as well.
4) Dirt != Soil. This is where the nitrogen really bites you in the butt. Is it better to wait for hundreds of years to grow your own, or to ship tons of organic matter from mother earth?
Or simply harvest nitrogen from the atmosphere.
From a site I maintain: http://www.openvirgle.net/
On April 1st, 2008, a fierce discussion started at Google's latest effort, Project Virgle. It proposed a grassroots effort to get a colony on Mars. What they didn't expect is that the Internet would respond so positively to what was hastily discovered as an April Fools Joke. Dissatisfied with what that first 24 hours of discussion and work represented, a number of members struck out to do what Google thought was only a joke, and start a real grassroots effort to inhabit space. Thus OpenVirgle was born, with every intention of gathering talent from across the globe, and focusing it all on creating ideas and ways in which humankind can live sustainably in space using free and open source technology.
This project remains a place for all space enthusiasts to cooperate in a playful learning community of individuals and groups chaordically building free and open source knowledge, tools, and simulations, which lay the groundwork for humanity's eventual joyful, compassionate, and diverse expansion into space (including Mars, the Moon, the Asteroids, or elsewhere in the Universe), and also pool our current resources to make all of these ideas a physical reality. We believe that humanity works much better when they work together, and that the fastest way to advance knowledge rapidly is to have it shared equally amongst the largest group possible.
OpenVirgle's mission is, first and foremost, the consolidation of information. There are many pro-space-settlement groups out there, each with great ideas. The problem is, they are all competitive for funding, and they can't seem to agree on space settlement tactics and technologies. We will attempt to bring together all of these ideas and all of this information, and put it all up for proper comparison and discussion. Hopefully, future groups, or future iterations of OpenVirgle ourselves, will be able to use this collected knowledge to "put our eggs into a few more baskets" than just Earth.
We hope to end a history of secrecy and paranoia surrounding high technology development, and bring us all together towards a larger shared purpose, pooling resources and sharing the benefits of our combined work with the entirety of the human race. Yes, it's idealistic, but all the best grassroots efforts are, and if you don't shoot for the stars, you will never leave the planet.
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In practice though, over the last couple years, that energy has moved into the Open Manufacturing and DIY and Maker movements, which are more general. But the geenral idea is stil what will get us there. An SSI conference paper I presented on this theme in 2001:
http://www.kurtz-fernhout.com/oscomak/SSI_Fernhout2001_web.html
A 21st century issue: the irony of technologies of abundance in the hands of those still thinking in terms of scarcity.
Thats not up to Branson you muppet, it would be up to the son. Just like it would be up to the people who would volunteer for such a job... You know, like the people who volunteered to discover America and to go to the poles and to fly space rockets to the moon and such. Nobody held a gun at their heads!
They cannot do science more cost effectively than a robot. They cannot colonize because it will take GEOLOGIC time to terraform it.
BS. One guy and a jeep for a week could have gotten more accomplished as far as data gathering and analysis goes than all of the mars probe launches combined. Launching probes ain't free. It's incredibly costly as well.
So really. We should just stop being interested in Mars because it's like old and dusty and stuff. And we can't build a house or have anywhere to float a yacht. And it would be all uncomfortable and stuff. And stuff that takes a long time isn't worth doing. And it might be dangerous. And doing stuff like traveling millions of miles costs money. And it'd be all boring and junk.....
Jeez, when did Americans become whiny pussies? We used to be badasses, a shining symbol of freedom and courage. Now we're just money grubbing thugs who are willing to spend more money trying to install politicians in Middle Eastern countries than on mankind's progress. Sad.
Oh, forgot to add the classic "We have enough problems on Earth, we don't need to be in Space".
I would be divorced if I were him.
The earth's atmosphere is 78% nitrogen. On Mars the atmosphere is only 3% nitrogen, and it's much, much thinner than on earth. "Simply" harvesting a useful amount of nitrogen from the atmosphere is nowhere near as simple as you would have us believe.
Sure, it is. Here's a simple process:
1) Compress martian atmosphere to a workable level.
2) Cool that to below the freezing point of carbon dioxide to freeze out almost all carbon dioxide.
3) You're left with roughly three-fifths nitrogen, two-fifths argon, and small amounts of carbon dioxide, oxygen, carbon monoxide, and other low melting point gasses. Treat with something that reacts with the carbon monoxide to filter that out.
And there you go. Past this, all you need is a hydrogen source, such as the available water, to make ammonia, an important component of fertilizers. Or you can use legumes and nitrogen fixing bacteria to make nitrogen rich "green manure".
Before billions are spent going to Mars, I'd like to see a self-sufficient or at least semi-self-sufficient colony go live in Antarctica or the bottom of the ocean for an extended period. That includes growing food, climate control, recycling air, getting along with each other, etc. If an extinction level event happened like a giant asteroid hitting the earth, I believe a successful colony living at the bottom of the ocean may have a better chance than one on Mars.
True, living in the south pole or 3 miles under water isn't as cool as living on Mars but if you really are concerned with the human race living past an extinction level event this would likely be a better choice.
Ninjas don't carry tic tacs