Why go to mars?

Galabab

Galabab

Diabloii.Net Member
Why go to mars?

The topic name is not to be taken literally.
I mean not Mars but actually inhabiting other planets in our system.
Expending into space.

Everyone would agree that if we (humans) wanted to, we could build a city on the moon, mars and maybe on some satelites of other planets. Right now at present state of science.
We could build remote outposts in our solar system. If we wanted we could build a fleet of space ships and send them to alpha centauri which would take like 100 years (ion drive) but we COULD.

I think if on mars there was a civilization less advanced than ours we would have already conquered them. With a bunch of nuclear space ships.

But realaity is that space programs are hardly getting financed.

All we need is to find a reason to leave the earth!
 
H

HegemonKhan

Diabloii.Net Member
Re: Why go to mars?

simple:

humans are parasites/viruses. we consume/devour everything (like resources) in an area and than move onto another area and do the same.

if we continue with our destructive lack of concern for the environment (global warming) or if we have a nuclear war (nuclear winter), this area (earth) will be "destroyed/consumed/devoured" and probably not or not very well suited any longer to support humans, which makes the moon or mars a very "juicy new host" for us to infect. let us jsut hope our technology is able to keep up with our parasitical destructive behavior.
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biologically: humans are mammals
behaviorially: humans are parasites/viruses

which is what defines a species? biologically or behaviorally ?
 
ffejrxx

ffejrxx

Diabloii.Net Member
Re: Why go to mars?

and how would you feed people for 100+year trips?
the farther you get from a star the less energy you can use from it

then there is the ratiation, astroids, and space crap to travel through
if your traveling at nearly the speed of light and notice one of the above, how long do you have to react before its too late
 
Garbad_the_Weak

Garbad_the_Weak

Diabloii.Net Member
Re: Why go to mars?

NASA did a good job of justifying its budget in the 1960s-1980s. They showed lots of examples of useful things they developed, interesting things we learned, and oh yeah, it contributed to the collapse of communism. Nowadays, they don't justify themselves as publicly. And space hasn't captured human imagination like it did in the day.

But as for me, hells yeah! I would much rather my taxes go towards a mars flight than another war, socialized medicine, or other assorted hopeandchange. And for that matter if offered a seat on the next trip to mars I would walk out of my office today and never look back. I would gladly sacrifice myself for that.

I consider scientific advancement in general to be a very high societal priority. And spreading off of this planet is also something we should do sooner rather than later, for the health of the species.

I guess I read too much scifi =)
 
H

HegemonKhan

Diabloii.Net Member
Re: Why go to mars?

hehe, we have some similiarities garbad (which might be frightening) :D

i know that during the space race, there were tons of dire "earthian" concerns, and yet we did the space race. which perplexes me.

i guess more than anything it was the competition the U.S. and Russia had with each other. the U.S. really didn't like losing the space race with Russia reaching orbit first. and despite all the challenges and problems on earth, U.S. wanted to out do Russia and went to the moon. very childish. and i think this childishness is why we had the space race than and not now. i think this childish competition between the U.S. and russia is what propelled the space race back than despite all the problems that were on earth to deal with, and why we aren't doing much with the space program now even though back than probably had equal amount of earth problems as we have now currently.
 
Galabab

Galabab

Diabloii.Net Member
Re: Why go to mars?

Johnny said:
Wouldn't even a few short years in zero gravity be lethal to the crew?
Click to expand...
gravity can be artficially sustained by using rotating living space.

ffejrxx said:
and how would you feed people for 100+year trips?
the farther you get from a star the less energy you can use from it

then there is the ratiation, astroids, and space crap to travel through
if your traveling at nearly the speed of light and notice one of the above, how long do you have to react before its too late
Click to expand...
If we were really like up to it we would make huge space ships in a matter of 20 years with nuclear plants and green houses.
Asteroids are only inside a star system. And even there they are mostly in an asteroid belt. Not much of a problem. Interstelar space is super empty.



Garbad_the_Weak said:
NASA did a good job of justifying its budget in the 1960s-1980s. They showed lots of examples of useful things they developed, interesting things we learned, and oh yeah, it contributed to the collapse of communism. Nowadays, they don't justify themselves as publicly. And space hasn't captured human imagination like it did in the day.
Click to expand...
It was idologicaly driven.
The "interesting" things they discoved sure were great but now if we are to find a reason to sail out into the dark we need something profitable.


 
lAmebAdger

lAmebAdger

Diabloii.Net Member
Re: Why go to mars?

if we really wanted to we could stop global warming... :D

there's a lot of things we theoretically could do, but we seem to be incapable of doing any of that stuff

that's a common impression
 
jmervyn

jmervyn

Diabloii.Net Member
Re: Why go to mars?

lAmebAdger said:
if we really wanted to we could stop global warming... :D
Click to expand...
And we will, as soon as America is crippled by cap & trade.

But there's an exploratory urge in humans, as well as a desire to populate, which I think will eventually cause us to set up colonies. The "Population Bomb", just like Global Warming, is partially mythological, and we don't have the pressure of actual resource scarcity that might cause more interest. There's plenty of food, air, water, and arable land - it's just that political concerns keep these out of the hands of the needy as has always happened.



 
llad12

llad12

Diabloii.Net Member
Re: Why go to mars?

When Neil Armstrong set foot on the Moon, it was one of the memorable, crowning achievements of the 20th century.

Sending a manned mission to Mars and returning them safely back to Earth would be another feather in our cap in the exploration of space.

There are many reasons to go to Barsoom. One of the most important: if we find fossilized microbes in the Martian rocks or perhaps even living microbes in the subsurface brines of Mars, it will demonstrate, once and for all, that we are not alone in this vast universe.
 
BobCox2

BobCox2

Diabloii.Net Member
Re: Why go to mars?

I'm a big fan of robotic exploration for now, the cost, payoffs and risks are better for now.

This is a good blog on the subject
Is Space Exploration Worth the Cost? A Freakonomics Quorum

By Stephen J. Dubner
Warning: what follows is a long blog post, perhaps better suited for a newspaper or magazine, and it will at times require your close attention. But I believe it is easily one of the best quorums we’ve ever published here. I’d like to thank all the participants for their thoughtful, well-considered, and fascinating answers, and for taking the time to share their very considerable expertise and experience.
Pretend that instead of being responsible for your household budget, which means paying for rent or a mortgage, transportation, some schooling costs, groceries, healthcare, vacation, etc., you are instead responsible for a considerably larger budget that provides a variety of services for about 300 million people including the maintenance of an army, protecting the borders, etc. In other words, pretend you are responsible for the U.S. Federal budget. And now ask yourself how much of that money you want to spend on manned space travel, and why.
We gathered up a group of space authorities — G. Scott Hubbard, Joan Vernikos, Kathleen M. Connell, Keith Cowing, and David M. Livingston, and John M. Logsdon — and asked them the following:
Is manned space exploration worth the cost? Why or why not?
​
Their responses are below.

http://freakonomics.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/01/11/is-space-exploration-worth-the-cost-a-freakonomics-quorum/
 
BobCox2

BobCox2

Diabloii.Net Member
Re: Why go to mars?

all life increases the rate of entropy around it - humans just do it better.
 
Johnny

Johnny

Banned
Re: Why go to mars?

HegemonKhan said:
simple:

humans are parasites/viruses. we consume/devour everything (like resources) in an area and than move onto another area and do the same.

if we continue with our destructive lack of concern for the environment (global warming) or if we have a nuclear war (nuclear winter), this area (earth) will be "destroyed/consumed/devoured" and probably not or not very well suited any longer to support humans, which makes the moon or mars a very "juicy new host" for us to infect. let us jsut hope our technology is able to keep up with our parasitical destructive behavior.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
biologically: humans are mammals
behaviorially: humans are parasites/viruses

which is what defines a species? biologically or behaviorally ?
Click to expand...
Haha! This planet has survived billions of years of being showered with asteroids, volcanoes, earthquakes and radiation and you think 100 years of heavy industry is going to be the final nail in this planets coffin? The planet is not going anywhere. We are.



 
H

HegemonKhan

Diabloii.Net Member
Re: Why go to mars?

exactly, the planet and even life (at least bacteria) can and will survive...just not humans...

i agree with u 100%
 
H

HegemonKhan

Diabloii.Net Member
Re: Why go to mars?

that's insulting, offensive, and erroneous. please respect otehr members (like me). it's site policy, please folow it.

do it again and i'll report u.
 
lAmebAdger

lAmebAdger

Diabloii.Net Member
Re: Why go to mars?

http://diablo.incgamers.com/forums/showthread.php?t=719175

basically, the mods in this thread say what reporting does... you should report, whenever you feel a post is problematic, not wait and use it as a threat...

on topic: wee! i wanna slide through the milky way!

(srsly, i don't know whether we can make it, it kind of feels like having to build the opera house of sydney all alone and with only a vague idea of sail-like roof and scattered bits of engineering/architectural knowledge at my disposal)
 
H

HegemonKhan

Diabloii.Net Member
Re: Why go to mars?

lAmebAdger said:
http://diablo.incgamers.com/forums/showthread.php?t=719175

basically, the mods in this thread say what reporting does... you should report, whenever you feel a post is problematic, not wait and use it as a threat...

on topic: wee! i wanna slide through the milky way!

(srsly, i don't know whether we can make it, it kind of feels like having to build the opera house of sydney all alone and with only a vague idea of sail-like roof and scattered bits of engineering/architectural knowledge at my disposal)
Click to expand...
i'd rather not do it and that's why i'm trying to give a warning, (it's a personal value of mine. i do NOT like to mess with other people, if i can help it. also, i know better than most, you should have the right to know what's going on or why smoething is being done to u) though members do have the right to be respected by other members as the site policy states, which i'm glad for because it bothers me when there's people who can't even treat another person respectfully and appropriately and civilly.


 
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