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Mars One is Dead (engadget.com)
The company that aimed to put humanity on the red planet has met an unfortunate, but wholly-expected end. Engadget reports: Mars One Ventures, the for-profit arm of the Mars One mission was declared bankrupt back in January, but wasn't reported until a keen-eyed Redditor found the listing. It was the brainchild of Dutch entrepreneur Bas Lansdorp, previously the founder of green energy company Ampyx Power. Lansdorp's aim was to start a company that could colonize one of our nearest neighbors. Mars One was split into two ventures, the non-profit Mars One Foundation and the for-profit Mars One Ventures. The Swiss-based Ventures AG was declared bankrupt by a Basel court on January 15th and was, at the time, valued at almost $100 million. Mars One Ventures PLC, the UK-registered branch, is listed as a dormant company with less than $25,000 in its accounts. There is no data available on the non-profit Mars One Foundation, which funded itself by charging its commercial partner licensing fees. Speaking to Engadget, Bas Lansdorp said that the Foundation is still operating, but won't be able to act without further investment. Lansdorp declined to give further comment beyond saying that he was working with other parties "to find a solution."
Their invent-new-month-names department blew up their budget.
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Seriously, anybody that thought that this had a chance does not understand what is involved in space travel.
Right now, only 2 private ventures, Spacex and Blue Origin, are doing what is needed.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
No, the dumbest thing is to move off-earth.
I'm sitting here wondering what your logic is behind this. It really defies common sense to have this mind set. Sooner or later there will be a extinction level event that we will not be able to prevent. Logically, it doesn't make any sense to remain planet bound once we develop the technology to move off planet.
I agree that Mars isn't best place to spread too. Personally, I think we should focus our efforts on Venus. But staying planet bound is a death sentence for our civilization, if not our species, at some point.
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The reason is that if you set up a station on mars, you have to assume that you can have as much as 3-6 months outage due to dust storms.
As such, Amundsen–Scott offers the REAL extreme needed for testing (other than maybe putting a station on top of Everest or K2). Need real external power, so a SMALL 1MW nuclear power station really needs to be developed. In fact, that would be ideal for south pole so as to quit bringing diesel fuel for electricity.
Likewise, the ppl would have to explore in space suits and gear in 0-40 C. This would give a decent testing of the equipment.
Of course, doing similar in high planes desert would be smart as well, but that will only test a worn out dust.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Next question, is what the hell are you talking about? Nobody has talked about floating cities on Venus in 50 years. Since we found out its a living hell and not a water world as was though.
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You know, you really have no clue what you are talking about do you? You call everyone else "anti-science" but seem to have no ideal that gravity can be simulated. I would suggest you spend some time reading up on subjects before commenting on them. Start with O'Neill Colonies and work out from there. Here is a link to get you started.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
Come back when you are better informed.
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No they don't. I've not seen where any one is talking about floating cities in the sky on Venus. There has been some talk of letting lose some floating balloons to study the planet. Which would actually work pretty well. JPL has proposed this to NASA. So that is pretty some sound science.
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Good. Now that you are educated, you can have a meaningful and intelligent discussion on the subject.
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Well you can take your chances. I see no reason to take chances with the species. We haven't been around for 4 billion years. We have been around, the most, for 250K years. We where almost driven to extinction a few thousand years ago by a volcanic event. There where an estimated 6,000 humans left on the planet after that event. That is pretty close to extinction for us.
Not spreading out when we have the technology is a joke. Like I have pointed out look up O'Neill colonies if you want to know where to go.
As for Venus. Yes it can be terraformed. It just takes more effort and eventually it can be made close to Earth.
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I've not seen where any one is talking about floating cities in the sky on Venus.
Then you aren't hanging out in the right forums. Floating Venusian cities are a perfectly plausible idea. The atmosphere there is much denser than earth's. Our atmosphere composition of 80/20 N2/O2 would provide plenty of buoyancy without any pressurization, and at a level where the temperature is right at a comfortable level. The external surface would need to be designed to withstand sulfuric acid gas, but plenty of cheap substances, including many polymers, can do that. Tethered shuttles down to the surface could retrieve building materials.
The technical challenges would be WAY easier than a Martian settlement.
There has been some talk of letting lose some floating balloons to study the planet.
Sure, that is a first step, but not the end goal.
Is this necessarily a bad thing? Just like most folks learn to accept that they won't live forever, maybe we just need to accept that our civilization and our species won't live forever?
I don't understand the logic behind this. Sure our species will cease to exist. It will do so in one of two ways. We will evolve into a more advanced species or we will go extinct. You act like you want to us to go extinct. What is the logic behind your thinking?
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No, your not. The wiki page was just a start. There is volumes of ideal out there with workable plans. You're ether uneducated on the subject or just a trolling now.
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I can see where this would be possible but I'm just not seeing much benefit to it. Maybe some research stations but not whole cities.
I remember reading a paper on the same thing with cities in the atmosphere of gas giants. It would work on the same principles as you have outlined. I have my doubts that it would be feasible with the wind conditions on gas giants.
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Temperature concerns on mars are not as bad as Antartica. The diffuse atmosphere results in less thermal loss on the red planet.
That is one thing we agree with: that wiki page WAS just the start. There are tons of websites created by bored website programmers/tech guys who dream of escaping the human race while they watch Star Trek reruns. You guys rehash the same crap over and over again. Floating cities on Venus. Terraforming entire planets. Building cave colonies on Mars. Meanwhile our water sources are becoming increasingly polluted on Earth and the threat of climate change and pollution is real. Why not try to solve these problems instead of fantasizing about leaving it? You aren't going anywhere, you might as well come outside and help.
I tell you what. Why dont' you tell me what one is first and who proposed it.
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The best Space Nutters always talk about building floating cities on Venus.
Yeah we know you like to troll about space topics and you're seriously a dick about it. Your "space nutters" meme is quite tired. You aren't convincing anyone of anything. If you don't like talking about concepts in space exploration that's fine but other people do. Let it go. People are just talking about the idea. Nobody has seriously proposed actually doing a floating city because everyone knows we don't have that sort of technology and won't for a very long time if ever. Certainly not in either of our remaining lifespans. If people want to talk about something that won't happen for hundreds or thousands of years if ever, why do you give a shit? It's fun to discuss. If you don't care about the topic then go somewhere else and talk about something you actually care about.
I'll tell you what: you show you can build a floating city here on Earth first. Then we will talk about doing it in Venus which is about 1,000,000x harder than on Earth.
Sigh... The atmosphere on Venus is FAR more dense and massive than the one on Earth. Presuming a floating city is possible at all, it would be FAR easier to float one in the atmosphere of Venus than Earth. If we get to the point where we have the sort of technology to make a floating city and to navigate around the solar system economically, doing so on Venus is very plausibly easier than on Earth.
Incorrect. What is a dyson motor? An who proposed it? Complete with math to show that it would work?
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See this shows why you are not educated enough to really understand the subject. Dyson sphere will not work. There is no way to make one stable.
emDrives have been proven not to work the way people thought they would. It is not a magic thruster less engine.
We already have a basic working space factory. Some manufacturing has been done on the ISS.
O'Neill stations are far in the future. We must walk before we can run.
An actually we do terraform patches of desert. Its call irrigation and the effects can be seen from space.
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Zeppelins can carry tons of material. What is a "miniature levitating city" and why would that be a measure of success? I guess you could try a model train set and have it run around a few model sky scrapers with lego people. It's miniature and light/small enough to meet your arbitrary requirement. Maybe even smaller than lego city people!
I am going on a limb to say that the challenges to get a craft in Venus' atmosphere (call it a city, a probe, a station, w/e) isn't technological right now. It's more of a question; do we want to and is it worth the money. Just like other missions in space.
What did ESA know about comets before sending Philae? What container did they need to test the harpoon and thrusters to land (soft bounce)? Did they need to test the entire probe in a "container simulating comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko"? Or did they take some educated guesses test those components against what they thought and knew and hoped for the best?
Can we get stuff to Venus? Yes.
Can we create crafts that use lifting gases for lift? Yes.
Can we create a craft that uses lifting gases to explore and study Venus' atmosphere? Yes.
Can we figure out how much weight can be carried by a lifting gas craft from the probes we could send? Yes.
Is there anything technological stopping us from doing the above? No.
Do we want to? I don't know. Sounds better than Mars partly because I heard Mars is a dick.
Yes he is trolling. Or he's a dick about the topic to such a degree that it is indistinguishable from trolling. Either way don't waste your time.
I'm going to have to agree. I keep saying he is uneducated, other than just an idiot, because he keeps bring up old disproven theories. He also seems to have issues distinguishing between space fantasy and science fiction subject that have strong science behind them. Such as O'Neill colonies and planet terraforming. All these things are possible. Doesn't mean they will happen, just that they are possible.
Anyway, I keep hoping someone else would come in that would be interested in having an intelligent conversation on the subjects.
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The only place where humans are adapted to live in the entire solar system is Earth. Even then we can only thrive on less than a quarter of the surface. The rest of the planet and solar system require significant amounts of resources to survive let alone thrive. The least hospitable places on Earth require orders of magnitude fewer resources to survive than anywhere off-planet and we don't bother trying to live there.
The odds of a civilization ending event off Earth are far higher than on Earth. It would take a mind boggling amount of effort and resources to build a self sufficient and sustainable colony on Venus or Mars. If any major component of said colony's technological infrastructure was to break it could kill everyone there. If my city has a blackout I'm inconvenienced, I don't die in an hour by freezing or suffocating. If a natural disaster happens and I need to leave my house I can survive outside it without some sort of spacesuit. I won't freeze, suffocate, or be melted by an acidic atmosphere.
If you think some off-world colony is any way practical in any sort of near term schedule, you're deluding yourself with sci-fi handwavium.
I'm a loner Dottie, a Rebel.
The problem that humanity has is it's inability to act in accordance with Nature, and Nature's left-hook as a result. Solve that first before spreading it throughout the universe.
What makes you think that spreading through out the universe is against nature? One thing that life does is expand into all areas that it is compatible with. We could call that phase one life, adapting to fit the environment.
Humanity could be phase two life. Adapting the environment to fit life. Seems to me that humanity isn't the problem but the solution. Does that mean we have a lot of shit to figure out? Yes it does. Are we going to make mistakes along the way. Yes we will.
But that is the beauty of life. If we fail, then given enough time life will try again.
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Actually, this does look interesting. I'm looking at some papers and some documenters on the subject right now. I'm still not convinced the feasibility of the subject but I'm willing to look into it.
You see, 01100110011101010110001101101011 01110100011000010111001001100100, that is the difference between you and the rest of us. When one of us hears of a concept we don't understand we research it. Where you just ridicule it.
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I think I agree. Plausible is probably a much better word. There is lot of unknowns and lots of things can go wrong with things we don't expect.
Like a year ago I did some experiments with Universal Sandbox on moving Venus to different orbit for terraforming. I thought that I could just add energy to the motion of the planet and it would move to a higher orbit. Nope. It did something I didn't expect. I dropped it in to the sun.
It took me several days to get the simulation right. What I learned is you have to change the orbital motion slightly at certain points in the planets orbit to achieve the desired outcome. Other wise you drop it into the sun or eject it from the solar system. After I got it right I was able to put venus in a stable orbit between mars and earth, in the goldielock zone while keeping all 3 planets in a stable orbit.
Something else happened in that experiment just by sheer luck. In one of the experiments I sent the orbit of venus out beyond mars. The orbit turned out to be stable, so I left it there and left the simulation running. When I came back, according to the simulation, the surface temperature had dropped from 300C to 62C.
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No you don't. You dont' have a clue. I'm not sure if you are just to lazy to do any real research or just not capable of understanding the research.
An also you don't know anything about people that work on space technology. Because this is exactly what a lot of them do. They speculate and make plans on things that we might be able to do and what benefits they would have. Yes there are people at nasa that discuss terraforming venus and mars. They design and build simulations on space colonies and other as you say fantasy technology. An I know this for a fact, because I used to live in Huntsville as a system developer. I worked with the people that do this and even coded some of the experiments for them. I knew the people that do this at NASA.
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I suspect the idea is to move it to a different orbit, and/or change its day period. As far as I understand, either or both is possible with a Dyson motor.
An you would be right. My whole concept that Venus would be a better terraforming subject than Mars is based on the concept of a dyson motor. Right now the dyson motor is just a concept on paper but the logic and math are sound. Doesn't mean we are going to do it, just means its plausible. There would still be a lot of research to be done and not to mention the capacity is so far beyond our ability, all we can do is research on the subject.
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Yes, its a concept. Probably not one you can understand. An so was the integrated circuit 50 years ago and radio before that. Concepts that eventually got built. Everything starts as a concept. If we went by your logic then we would still be huddled in caves and poking dinner with sharp sticks.
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Take care
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You know. I thought you where just clueless and maybe ignorant. But you're actually a idiot. That is pretty said. In the past I've noticed that you have said a few things that where rather cleaver. Oh well, another one for the freak file.
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Admitting that you are clueless and ignorant on a subject doesn't make you an idiot. What makes you a idiot is choosing to remain ignorant and clueless on a subject. What makes you a jackass is choosing to remain ignorant and clueless on a subject while ridiculing people who are not.
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Yeah. I can see your point. I like to think as we advance we will eventually understand ourselves better and maybe correct the issues as we do.
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Ever built a spacecraft?
Actually now that you mention it, I have. Sort of. Some of my code was worked into some of the control systems on the early ISS. It was only a few lines, but it did make it into the final release. I'm sure it's been replaced by now but yeah, some of my code did go into a space craft.
An if you must know, most of my knowledge on the subject came from the original papers. You can find them on websites but when I was doing my research you couldn't.
I think we are done here. Go do some reading. Maybe one day you will understand the concepts we are talking about here. But, alas, that day is not today.
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I'm beginning to think that coming down out of the trees in the first place was a bad move.
I think we are both on that page right now.
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Did they remove the freak setting from /.? I can only assign 0110100101100100011010010110111101110100 as a foe but I think freak is more appropriate.
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Why Venus?
Mars will never be a living breathing planet like Earth. It will always be a artificial world. Sure, we may terraform it but given time it will revert to how it is now. It may take a few million years but Mars will eventually die, again. Terra forming Mars will always be a never ending project.
Venus has the mass, and the gravity that is pretty close to Earth. It could be another Earth, eventually. The things you brought up, 800 degree, acid atmosphere, are actually the easiest to correct. Not that doing them will actually be easy.
The real issue is changing the rotation of the planet, maybe its orbit, and starting plate tectonics. These are all theoretically possible but would not be very easy to accomplish. An not something short of a level 2 civilization could accomplish. So, we are looking at thousands of years in the future.
But compared to terraforming Venus, Mars would be a cake walk. I'm also not saying we shouldn't terraform Mars. I just think eventually Venus would be a better candidate.
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Earth will never become inhospitable like Venus or Mars. The KISS solution is fix this planet.
An you can guarantee this how? You can promise 100% that there will never be another impact like the one that caused the Chicxulub crater, or bigger? There are bigger rocks out there floating around.
You are 100% sure there will never be another Permianâ"Triassic extinction event that killed off 96% of all life on the planet? You know this 100% how?
You personally assure us that in the next 100, 1000, or even the next 10,000 years none of these events will ever happen again?
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No ideal. I've not looked into the freak/foe system in years. Some times I miss usenet and a good killfile.
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