Slashdot Mirror
Kim Stanley Robinson Says Colonizing Mars Won't Be As Easy As He Thought
An anonymous reader sends this excerpt from io9:
Kim Stanley Robinson's Mars trilogy filled us all with hope that we could terraform Mars in the 21st century, with its plausible description of terraforming processes. But now, in the face of what we've learned about Mars in the past 20 years, he no longer thinks it'll be that easy. Talking to SETI's Blog Picture Science podcast, Robinson explains that his ideas about terraforming Mars, back in the 1990s, were based on three assumptions that have been called into question or disproved:
1) Mars doesn't have any life on it at all. And now, it's looking more likely that there could be bacteria living beneath the surface. 2) There would be enough of the chemical compounds we need to survive. 3) There's nothing poisonous to us on the surface. In fact, the surface is covered with perchlorates, which are highly toxic to humans, and the original Viking mission did not detect these. "It's no longer a simple matter," Robinson says. "It's possible that we could occupy, inhabit and terraform Mars. But it's probably going to take a lot longer than I described in my books."
1) Mars doesn't have any life on it at all. And now, it's looking more likely that there could be bacteria living beneath the surface. 2) There would be enough of the chemical compounds we need to survive. 3) There's nothing poisonous to us on the surface. In fact, the surface is covered with perchlorates, which are highly toxic to humans, and the original Viking mission did not detect these. "It's no longer a simple matter," Robinson says. "It's possible that we could occupy, inhabit and terraform Mars. But it's probably going to take a lot longer than I described in my books."
Just because flight was tougher than strapping a couple wings to our arms or summoning up a magic carpet doesn't mean it wasn't ultimately possible. There are new challenges to leaving earth. That's no reason to give up on it entirely.
Supporter of the +1 Over Dramatic mod option. In memory of apk.
Imagine if the Roanoke colonists decided Antarctica should be their goal. Well that's where Mars colonization plans are today. Of all the reasonable candidates, (Low earth orbit, the Lagrange points, the Moon, Mars, Asteroids) Mars is about the worst. It's at the bottom of the deepest gravity well outside of earth, except for the asteroids it has the longest travel time, and will have the longest development time before it can return resources to the people that invest in it.
New science has shown it won't be as easy as he once thought. But even newer science could mean it's even easier than he dreamed. For example, if Lockheed-Martin delivers on the promise of compact fusion then all of these so called issues are washed away in a river of free energy.
Support the First Amendment. Read at -1
Plenty of people on this planet rarely if ever go outside
Yeah, but what percentage of people never go outdoors ever? And how healthy and mentally well-balanced are those people?
Not to mention the fact that if you're going to live your entire life inside a windowless room underground, it's a hell of a lot cheaper to do that on Earth, and outside of the heavier gravity, the experience is the same. Plus that way you retain the option of going outside if/when you finally are about to go insane from cabin fever.
I don't care if it's 90,000 hectares. That lake was not my doing.
I think it's obvious: do the moon first. We are _incredibly lucky_ to have this resource on our backyard.
The more I think of it if the Mars One people are going to make any pretence of being serious then why aren't they trying to colonize the moon? It has to be an order of magnitude cheaper, landing on the moon is something we've actually done before, it's not a one way journey, and it gives you a chance to learn how to build an off-world colony before going all-in on Mars.
It might even be a proposal you could take seriously.
I stole this Sig
It almost makes you think that the fy should actually be fi, like the first two letters of fiction.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Calm down there, Mr. Catastrophe.
Humans (and every other critter on the planet) have been dying off in droves intermittently since the dawn of creation. Local populations and entire civilizations have run out of various resources, crashed and recovered (or morphed to new civilizations and societies) since the dawn of mankind. The Neanderthals and Desmonians got wipe out. Homo Sapiens somehow managed to pull through. There is pretty good evidence (from sequencing data) that we pulled through by the skin of our teeth at least once. So disaster has been our middle name for quite some time.
The 'new' disasters probably won't be global in scope - they will happen in Africa, Bangledesh, India - all those places that we tend to ignore anyway. There will be winners and losers galore. Yes, there will be global changes, but I don't see the complete collapse of Homo Industrialis unless we go full retard and dump every nuclear weapon we have into the planet. Even then there are going to be survivors.
It won't be the world we grew up into, it rarely is.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!