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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.
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.
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.
And my answer will be, "Where do I sign!?"
What's wrong with his wealth? The man is a serial entrepreneur and he started out selling budgies and Christmas trees. If we had ten of him, the world would be a better place.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_Richard_Branson's_business_ventures
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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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...
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.
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.
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.
I would be divorced if I were him.