Mars Or Bust: Putting Humans On The Red Planet - Polidicks

After watching Gravity? noepnoepnoepnoepnoepnoep dont want go to space i like ground please god no [video=youtube;OiTiKOy59o4]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OiTiKOy59o4[/video] I couldn't go to space.

[QUOTE=hypno-toad;43599996]Oh sorry yeah, no air, but air is a rising gas and the palatable temperature and sunlight quantity would be useful Mars just seems like a doomed and dead planet, it wasn't big enough to go anywhere and it's desolate for a reason. Whereas Venus seems more like Earths crack addicted fuckup cousin that took a wrong turn in life and could be fixed or altered if the time and effort was put into it :v: Venus may be a hellhole, but it's similar to earth in makeup and can hold onto water an atmosphere for a long time, assuming the pre-existing atmosphere could be altered.[/QUOTE] It's really not as easy as just altering the atmosphere at all. [editline]20th January 2014[/editline] [QUOTE=Saber15;43601239]IIRC, at the surface, the sheer heat coming off the rocks and atmosphere gives off light. [img]http://i.imgur.com/YRrGQbD.jpg[/img] I'm pretty sure most of the old Soviet photos are doctored to be brighter for viewing, though.[/QUOTE] Well we were talking about living in the upper cloud layers, I don't know if the heat of the surface gives off enough heat to actually make any light, but by the time you're high enough that the temperature is earth-like, there's thick clouds of carbon dioxide below you blocking all of it anyway. [editline]20th January 2014[/editline] [QUOTE=Zeke129;43600124]What can humans do that we can't just send machines to do in their place?[/QUOTE] Analyze and think within few seconds. A human can look around and see if he seens anything interesting that stands out, that's not as easy for a rover. Sure it could look around with a camera and beam it back so people here could take a look, but it would take several minutes for the signals to get to and from, and the current resolution we could beam back instantaneously would make smaller details invisible. There's a lot humans can do that rovers can't, just like there's a lot humans can do that robots can't here on Earth.

Are we ready to leave earth and turn another planet into our world, repave the world to fit in our glorious plan of making Mars our next Earth? Do we have the technology to terraform mars to make it habitable and beautiful as hours? Do we have the resources to start our next stage of colonization and interplanetary travel?

I remember during the livestream for the launch of Curiosity some dude (I assume a NASA scientist) suggested a 2-part trip: Sending 2 people to mars with supplies and half of the fuel needed to get back to Earth, and after staying on mars for 2 years NASA would send the other half of the fuel needed, after which they come back to Earth. I'm sure I'm missing details or have something completely wrong here, but that was the gist of it.

I kinda like Earth [editline]20th January 2014[/editline] Wouldn't terraforming take a seriously long amount of time? (thinking of how many millions/billion/s) of years it took for the Earths atmosphere to become what it has today

[QUOTE=Complifused;43607204] Wouldn't terraforming take a seriously long amount of time? (thinking of how many millions/billion/s) of years it took for the Earths atmosphere to become what it has today[/QUOTE] read the thread

[QUOTE=Saber15;43601239]IIRC, at the surface, the sheer heat coming off the rocks and atmosphere gives off light. [img]http://i.imgur.com/YRrGQbD.jpg[/img] I'm pretty sure most of the old Soviet photos are doctored to be brighter for viewing, though.[/QUOTE] it's kind of funny seeing this and knowing about the pressure and the temperatures, it's not really as visibly hellish as i'd expected it to be

[QUOTE=beanhead;43599221]Why dont we try the moon first?[/QUOTE] We need to find a way to refine fuel from stuff on the moon. It wouldn't be worth it if, say, we just launched a fuel tanker rocket to the moon and launched the rockets from the moon.

[QUOTE=Cone;43607659]it's kind of funny seeing this and knowing about the pressure and the temperatures, it's not really as visibly hellish as i'd expected it to be[/QUOTE] That's probably because the pictures you are seen are taken by rovers, and rovers are usually landed where the planet is most stable and as little as possible can happen to interfear with the mission of the rover. Naturally you'll see the quiet, still pictures of the planet because that's where it's prefered to land the rovers.

Why can't we start with a moon colony? Baby-steps with colonizing seems a lot more practical, not to mention safer.

We could be together, walking on the moon.

[IMG]http://static2.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20110725113904/redfaction/images/9/96/UltorPropaganda2.png[/IMG] Damn i wish i would be born later so i could sign up for mining on mars

What about all the politics related to it? Would Mars be the equivalent of the north pole? Science only? Maybe it would bring all the nations together. Or maybe one day we'll have the first planetary war. Boy what a time to live in.

Terraform that shit!

A moon colony would be useful as a testbed for a Mars colony. If anything goes wrong on a moon colony then it's relatively easy to escape to Earth and find what we did wrong. With a Mars colony if something goes wrong everyone dies.