Review: Should Humans Settle Mars? This Book Is Skeptical | Hacker News Reader

Review: Should Humans Settle Mars? This Book Is Skeptical

reason.com

13 pointsrendall11 comments

Not a great article, but if colonising space is a desirable goal, it’s important that people properly appreciate what we’re up against. I’ve seen Mars described as one of the most human hostile places in the solar system.

The book's homepage: https://www.acityonmars.com

It could even be true that colonising space is not a desirable goal in general, but one might wish specific people would attempt to settle Mars, although said wish would be less benevolent and more "don't let the gravity well hit you on the way out"...

Where did you read that? Mars is generally described as the opposite, the most human-friendly place in the system besides Earth.

It has a 24 hr 37 m hour day, 38% Earth gravity, a pressurized atmosphere that human skin could probably be briefly exposed directly to on the warmest days, the elements in the crust are like that are of Earth, in about the same ratio of abundance. It gets enough sunlight that it would be useful for growing plants, or solar power. Powered flight would work in Mars's atmosphere.

Feels just like home. The 38% gravity is the main unknown. How do humans and other living beings do with that? Engineering an underground Martian base is otherwise much like an underground Earth base that needs to be sealed airtight. Humans have much more large-scale engineering experience of that style than with building free-scale structures in space.

Venus and Mercury are Hell. The outer planets' moons are very far away, much colder, with no sunlight, none approach Mars for similar gravity. The only real alternatives are a space station, or something on the Moon. The Moon is closer, but is much like Mars except it has no atmosphere, little water, and less gravity.

So, what doesn't Mars have? The year's way too long. There is very little nitrogen. It's very cold. The lack of water means everything is dusty and the dust is razor sharp and destroys machinery, and probably lungs too. The surface terrain is daunting. It's not geologically active enough to have a meaningful magnetosphere. So you're being irradiated on the surface quite badly. Yet it's still geologically active enough, your subterranean base needs to consider what the odd small marsquake might do to your radiation shielding and atmosphere containment walls.

Perhaps the best handling of this topic yet was in science fiction. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars_trilogy Just read it less optimistically and imagine that the colonies in the books did in fact collapse, in the face of any of the innumerable physical, engineering, biological, medical, technological, social, political or any other problem KSR managed to think up and synthesize.

You've forgotten the Perchlorates.

OTOH the atmosphere of Venus at a certain height is allegedly not so hellish, and would enable free-floating platforms up to city-size due to buyoancy of normal earth atmosphere at that height. Not that much sulphuric acid up there either, managable by already common and mass-produced materials. Also even moar solar! And endless carbon-supplies to suck up.

Call it Bespin, Cloud9, whatever...

> Mars is generally described as the opposite, the most human-friendly place in the system besides Earth.

The most human-friendly places will be the places we build ourselves — other planets are not ideal, or necessary.

The dirt is toxic. There’s no magnetic field so there’s lots of solar and cosmic radiation. There’s no water to speak of. Certainly none liquid. There’s no air to breathe. There’s no food to eat. It’s cold. There’s not enough atmosphere so meteors are actually a problem. Good luck keeping that dome intact.

Perhaps humans could live in lava tubes. If we wanted to do that we could live in caves on earth. Nobody does that because it would be unpleasant and difficult. But less than a thousandth as difficult as living on mars. To say nothing of getting there. A mars colony would be entirely dependent on earth for the next several hundred years and would probably be a hellishly unpleasant place to live.

Also the primary person pushing for colonization is a narcissistic man-child who can’t tolerate even the slightest suggestion that he may have made a mistake even when the mistake is blatant, obvious and egregious. Not the kind of person you want to depend on for your air water food and heat. If you think he’s bad now just wait till he’s largely beyond the reach of the law and holds the power of life and death in his hands. Quick name a hundred people he has lashed out against for disagreeing with him in even the mildest of ways. You can actually do that and it should be terrifying to consider.

He also seems to invest in projects that have very little hope of accomplishing anything on Mars.

His humanoid robot is pointless for space exploration and the Cybertruck isn't going to be sent to Mars.

Where are his rovers? Where are his space probes? Where is his space suit for Mars? He has done nothing to make it possible to start a Mars mission. He constantly advertises a proto starship year for year to go to Mars but he could have done smaller scale projects with the Falcon 9. The fact remains that he has nothing to send to Mars except humans to their death.

> So, what doesn't Mars have?

Oil. /s

I’m pretty sure Venus and the sun are far more hostile to human habitation.

without a lot of knowledge and skill, so is most of north america, northern europe etc.

I can think of several places far far worse than mars

Mars Colony Legal Code: https://marslegalcode.org/

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