Posted on 05/26/2004 9:09:24 AM PDT by presidio9
I just KNOW there's a Uranus joke in here somewhere.
I consider no cosmos thread complete without one of those.
(Pinging the pinger of the science commentariat)
Cool link Martin-- I'll check it out.
Let the fools rush off to Mars. Venus will be worth something some day; Mars will never be significant in the history of the Solar System.
If we stay the course with GWB's commitment, I'd have to disagree. Which other planet would we be able to perfect terraforming on?
As far as Venus goes, it's almost impossible to imagination any human habitat on that planet.
See, that's where groupthink leads you. Mars is easy enough to get to. Venus is hard. But which one has the resources to make it worthwhile? Here's a secret: Mars is a barren desert. Mars could support a science colony, but otherwise nothing is happening. Some day someone will have the chance to opt for Venus, that will be the day the direction of human history changes.
Can you please cite evidence to suggest Mars' crust would not contain rare elements?
My ultimate point was that Mars will most probably be the second self-sustaining human planet, mostly becuase it is easiest to colonize. Can you argue otherwise?
I wrote off Mars decades ago. It wouldn't be useful as a base for asteroid mining. It could support a fair number of monasteries and science outposts, maybe a Plymouth Bay Colony now and then. But look at Venus! It could be cleaned up, spiffed up, and marketed as the New World, the thing America was supposed to be except this time for real. Venus is our twin, you know.
Understood, however, we must walk before we run. Mars will be our training ground. As far as cleaning and spiffing up Venus.....well, that sounds like a HUGE amount of terraforming. If we could normalize the atmosphere, what is the predicted surface temperature supposed to be?
The planet must be moved to an earth Lagrange point, and it must be provided with a moon. Mercury would be excellent in that role. Mercury is also a mining industry motherlode. Double bonus. Of course at this time we are unable to do much of anything on the moon, or even to capture an impact asteroid should one be coming our way. We don't have any capability to work in space, and we should get to work developing that capability. Venus is longterm, and we have a lot of technology to develop.
See? You've gone and proven my assertion! The majority of testing and development for those things will most probably occur via Mars colonization. Now, is that worthless?
Not saying the Mars plans are worthless, nor that Mars itself is worthless. Earthly monasteries need a place to go since earth has become inhospitable to certain subtle forms of life. Of curse, in the short term the moon and Mars are to be the main foci of action. However, the big tech is beyond that. Moving planetary bodies is so advanced that there are few clues as to how to proceed. It will be Mars and the moon for the rest of our lives anyway. After that Mercury and Venus. And after that something else, but I'll not worry about it. Venus sure looks nice sitting out there in the morning sky, which is not where it is at the moment. When you look at Venus, think real estate.
I'm not keen on terraforming. I suspect it would be a whole lot easier, and cheaper, to transform the Saraha desert. For getting work done in space, off-planet habitats seem like a more practical solution. That is, until we can get to other planetary systems where we might find more congenial planets.
Why so? Consider: gravity issues (atrophy)*, meteors, mineable materials (such as water, nitrates, etc.). Mars is pretty docile, comparatively.
Now, if you are discussing building one o' THESE babies,
I'll retract my argument completely. Well, only if I can shoot the lasers n' stuff. Beeyow! Zap!
*Yes, I know rotation can produce what we need, but that has inherent problems as well.
The gravity issue is overcome by spinning the environment. The best reason for using off-planet habitats for space work is the planetary gravity well. It costs a fortune to boost something into orbit. Once you're in orbit, however, you're "halfway to anywhere." It doesn't make sense to keep shuttling people between the surface and orbit.
Already addressed that (2 posts up, asterisk). As far as the gravity well, you are completely right. However, I cannot see mining all our our needed materials from asteroids. Ultimately, we are going to need to lift stuff up.
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