Human colony on Mars in 2023?

Puppycow said:
People do lots of things that aren't strictly for profit. There's no profit in climbing Mt. Everest but lots of people do it anyway for bragging rights, a place in history or whatever their motivation is. This is something like that. The first team there gets bragging rights and a place in the history books. There's a long history of this sort of thing. The race to be the first explorer to the North Pole and then the South Pole. Mt. Everest, etc. Mars is the next new frontier.
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The Curiosity Rover mission has a cost of $2.5B

The proposed mission would hugely exceed that, with routine ongoing costs in terms of regular supply.

I'd say that one of those Everest or Polar expeditions was different by some orders of magnitude.
 
Puppycow said:
People do lots of things that aren't strictly for profit. There's no profit in climbing Mt. Everest but lots of people do it anyway for bragging rights, a place in history or whatever their motivation is. This is something like that. The first team there gets bragging rights and a place in the history books. There's a long history of this sort of thing. The race to be the first explorer to the North Pole and then the South Pole. Mt. Everest, etc. Mars is the next new frontier.
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GlennB said:
The Curiosity Rover mission has a cost of $2.5B

The proposed mission would hugely exceed that, with routine ongoing costs in terms of regular supply.

I'd say that one of those Everest or Polar expeditions was different by some orders of magnitude.
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A company that wants to put a person on Mars will have to justify their decision to their shareholders. The justification for this would be interesting to say the least. Not to mention the shareholders reaction who probably invested to either get dividends or to see a capital gain.

Those people who climb mountains are not part of a private company. I agree 100% with what GlennB has said.
 
Which is why it would probably be organized as a non-profit.

There must be scores of non-profit charities that get more than a billion dollars/year in donations. Raising the money is not inconceivable. At least, it's not the biggest challenge they face.
 
Puppycow said:
Which is why it would probably be organized as a non-profit.

There must be scores of non-profit charities that get more than a billion dollars/year in donations. Raising the money is not inconceivable. At least, it's not the biggest challenge they face.
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The American Cancer Society doesn't raise a billion dollars a year, and they're trying to fight cancer. I can't imagine an organization will be able to raise that much money for the dubious goal of enabling humans to die on Mars.
 
zeggman said:
The American Cancer Society doesn't raise a billion dollars a year, and they're trying to fight cancer. I can't imagine an organization will be able to raise that much money for the dubious goal of enabling humans to die on Mars.
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Does anybody actually read the information about this before attempting to comment on it?

First, it is established as a not-for-profit venture.

Second, they anticipate that only a small portion of the money they need will come through donations/investment. The vast majority would be raised through commercial activities, such as a reality show to choose who goes, as well as ongoing broadcasts from the group as they travel to Mars, and then set up their colony there.

As they note in their business plan (which I wrote to them about and received), the Olympic Games in London netted $3 billion in revenues...and they expect this venture to be much bigger. Not necessarily the first part, with choosing who goes...but if it were to actually happen, then as they note, they'd likely have the world's largest audience ever for any event.

The sale of merchandise, sale of sponsorship and advertising packages, etc., could potentially raise the money necessary.

So no, they're not like the American Cancer Society, which relies almost exclusively on donations; these guys plan a series of very aggressive commercial ventures that will be international in scope, and if successful, could generate huge amounts of money.

It's still a huge "if". But the more I look at it, the more I do think that this is an sincere attempt at reaching Mars, and not just a publicity thing to launch a reality show. As I noted above, I received a copy of their business plan, and it not only describes very aggressive plans that include the plan to send people to Mars, but is backed by a number of reputable and experienced scientists and engineers.

They are also planning a crowd-sourcing fundraiser in the near future, again predicated on the idea of actually sending people to Mars.

If they were planning only a reality show, then it would be an act of major fraud to approach investors/donors without revealing that information to them. And given the reputations of some of the people involved in this, I just can't see that being the case here.

Of course, in practical terms, I still think it's highly unlikely they'll accomplish their goals...which would mean that in the end, it would still end up just being a reality TV show, preparing people for a trip that they'll never actually make.
 
Wolfman said:
Does anybody actually read the information about this before attempting to comment on it?

First, it is established as a not-for-profit venture.
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I read everything on their website.

Wolfman said:
As they note in their business plan (which I wrote to them about and received), the Olympic Games in London netted $3 billion in revenues...and they expect this venture to be much bigger.
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But those Olympics cost £9 billion of public money to stage.

Wolfman said:
As I noted above, I received a copy of their business plan, and it not only describes very aggressive plans that include the plan to send people to Mars, but is backed by a number of reputable and experienced scientists and engineers.
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So is the ludicrous so-called plan (Planetary ResourcesWP) to harvest asteroids. Major ex-NASA boffins, no less. That project appears already to be in its death-throes, judging by the newsletters they send me by email.

Wolfman said:
Of course, in practical terms, I still think it's highly unlikely they'll accomplish their goals...which would mean that in the end, it would still end up just being a reality TV show, preparing people for a trip that they'll never actually make.
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In practical terms they have targetted their first equipment launch to Mars for early 2016, with (afaics) SpaceX kit that doesn't even exist yet. Just as Planetary Resources' plan will rely on simple orbital space telescopes that don't even exist yet.

It isn't going to happen, and it's not so far distant that it's not worth striking a bet ;)

But I'm not sure if we've even discussed whether the appropriate authorities would even allow what is, effectively, a suicide mission.
 
Am deeply doubtful the mission will ever get off the ground. Have serious suspicions that it is a huge publicity stunt to make money from spin off TV and in other ways. From Physorg:

'How does this group expect to fund this effort, which would surely cost in the multiple billions of dollars? Reality TV, of course! Mars One plans to televise every aspect of the mission and involve the whole world in the run up to the launch. As Nobel Prize-winning physicist Gerard 't Hooft says in Mars One's introductory video, "This is going to be a media spectacle. 'Big Brother' will pale in comparison."'

Read more at: http://phys.org/news/2013-01-life-mars- ... y.html#jCp

The costs would be astronomical. The practical problems immense. See no government supporting it (thankfully). Maybe a few nutjob rich, but nowhere near enough to make it viable.

No doubt the application process will attract a lot of wackdoodles.

I will eat my hat, and all of yours too if this ever goes ahead. Have so far seen no good rational rationale for doing it anyway.

Mind you, I would be tempted to go if they guarantee it will be a woo free zone!

And yes. Have read through the website and despite some credible names attached, it lacks a huge amount of detail and skims over the really big issues. I like the way they say, for example that radiation shielding of the living pods will be by covering in Mars soil. That should prove an interesting project, like how they will keep it adhered. Sort of adobe mud huts on mars!
 
Wolfman said:
Does anybody actually read the information about this before attempting to comment on it?
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I confess that I did not, and probably will not. I shouldn't even be spending time with the handful of threads I read here, but we all have our vices.

Wolfman said:
If they were planning only a reality show, then it would be an act of major fraud to approach investors/donors without revealing that information to them. And given the reputations of some of the people involved in this, I just can't see that being the case here.
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I'd say (without knowing who these big names are) that they're victims of the fraud at best and enablers and winking co-conspirators at worst, perhaps reasoning "but at least some good SCIENCE can come out of it."

Dubious Dick said:
Have so far seen no good rational rationale for doing it anyway.
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This is the heart of the matter.

Back in the fifties and sixties, when we knew much less about the planets which share our solar system than we do today, there was some justification for pursuing the goal of colonizing them. That is no longer true. If "learning to live in inhospitable environments" is the objective, the deserts, the poles, and the ocean floor provide much better and more useful laboratories.

Unlike the colonies established in the original "age of exploration", there is no prospect of exploiting the resources on these other worlds to improve the lives of the folks back home. The gravity wells on each of them, and the literally astronomical cost of overcoming those wells, mean that for the foreseeable future (i.e., until and unless some breakthrough is made in propulsion technology) the only resource it makes sense to harvest is information, which can be ferried to earth in the form of massless photons. Robots are ideally suited to this task.

At this point in our history, sending men outside the Earth-Moon system has to be regarded as a kind of silly pipe dream.
 
Puppycow said:
People do lots of things that aren't strictly for profit. There's no profit in climbing Mt. Everest but lots of people do it anyway for bragging rights, a place in history or whatever their motivation is. This is something like that. The first team there gets bragging rights and a place in the history books. There's a long history of this sort of thing. The race to be the first explorer to the North Pole and then the South Pole. Mt. Everest, etc. Mars is the next new frontier.
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You mention "bragging rights" and a place in the history books. Yes, for sure.


What about property rights ? Could a private entity that colonises Mars take the view that they have right to that planet ?
 
Paul W said:
Or even reduce themselves to protozoa size and … etc. As above, can you imagine a Paramecium getting the hots over a Euglena.

“She’s got such a lovely flagellum. Oh, I do like being whipped. She’s got divine chloroplasts as well.”

“Don’t be stupid, she’s not your type.” The mind starts boggling again.
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Sorry, got a bit confused!

Can you imagine a Paramecium getting the hots over a Euglena.

"She loves my flagellum: she's got this thing about being whipped. Mind you, she's got divine cholorplasts."

“Don’t be stupid, she’s not your type.”

The mind starts boggling again.

Alternatively, "I love his flagellum ... etc".

Boggle cubed.
 
zeggman said:
Unlike the colonies established in the original "age of exploration", there is no prospect of exploiting the resources on these other worlds to improve the lives of the folks back home. The gravity wells on each of them, and the literally astronomical cost of overcoming those wells, mean that for the foreseeable future (i.e., until and unless some breakthrough is made in propulsion technology) the only resource it makes sense to harvest is information, which can be ferried to earth in the form of massless photons. Robots are ideally suited to this task.
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You're right in theory, but not in practice, for two reasons: not all resources exist in a gravity well, and the bottom of some gravity wells contain the means to climb back up.

Since we're talking about Mars, I'll start with that. One of the most important Martian discoveries so far is that Mars is wet. It doesn't just have water. It has continent-sized, kilometer-thick sheets of ice. That ice, plus CO2 from the air, can make methane and oxygen, and ship it back up to space far more cheaply than fuel can be shipped from Earth's steeper well. Or resources from Mars. For the longest time, the New World colonies survived by exporting rare luxury goods (sugar, beaver pelts) alone. What price do you think jewelry made from frikkin' Mars would fetch?

Also, there's plenty to exploit without going down a well at all. Divert NEAs to earth orbit. Hollow out Phobos into an industrial habitat. Be a little creative.

And that's not even factoring in the more... interesting ideas like a Lunar space elevator, buildable with materials in existence today.
 
Beelzebuddy said:
. What price do you think jewelry made from frikkin' Mars would fetch?
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First few batches will fetch tens of millions, as a novelty item. Then price will drop very quickly -- which is always the case with novelty items. You won't support a colony with Martian jewelery.

In fact, the only way price of Martian jewelery will remain high is if objective costs of getting it remains very high. In other words, if getting 150 lb primates (as opposed to 5-gram rocks) to and from Mars remains prohibitively expensive.
 
Beelzebuddy said:
Since we're talking about Mars, I'll start with that. One of the most important Martian discoveries so far is that Mars is wet. It doesn't just have water. It has continent-sized, kilometer-thick sheets of ice. That ice, plus CO2 from the air, can make methane and oxygen, and ship it back up to space far more cheaply than fuel can be shipped from Earth's steeper well.
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That only pushes the question of colonies' profitability one step further. The fact the shipping ice from Mars into space is cheaper than shipping ice from Earth into space only matters if market for ice in space exists. Such market will only exist if something profitable and large-scale exists in space.
Beelzebuddy said:
Also, there's plenty to exploit without going down a well at all. Divert NEAs to earth orbit. Hollow out Phobos into an industrial habitat. Be a little creative.
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Yes, be creative. Try to come up with ANY industry which makes sense in/on Phobos.
 
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Mark6 said:
That only pushes the question of colonies' profitability one step further. The fact the shipping ice from Mars into space is cheaper than shipping ice from Earth into space only matters if market for ice in space exists. Such market will only exist if something profitable and large-scale exists in space.

Yes, be creative. Try to come up with ANY industry which makes sense in/on Phobos.
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Amen.
 
StankApe said:
I don't think I'd want to be on the first mission!!! Maybe the 3rd or 4th... just to give me the confidence that they know what they are doing.

That time frame seems a bit optimistic though eh?
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If by "a bit" optimistic, you mean by about 20 years, then you're right. We'll be lucky to get to Mars by 2040, much less have a colony there.
 
Puppycow said:
http://news.discovery.com/space/private-spaceflight/space-tourist-mission-to-mars-in-2018-130221.htm

Strictly "no frills". Not going to land. Just go there and come back. It'll take 501 days.

I don't believe it will happen. At least not in 2018. If they do try I don't think it will be successful.

Is there any possibility to abort and come back halfway to Mars?
I'm guessing that's not possible. You need a gravity well to turn around, no?
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Anything is possible. However in practice once a rocket is on its way to Mars there is not much to stop it.
 
James Fallows interviews Eric Anderson of Space Adventures

JF: Why should people be excited about what lies ahead?

EA: In the next generation or two—say the next 30 to 60 years—there will be an irreversible human migration to a permanent space colony. Some people will tell you that this new colony will be on the moon, or an asteroid—in my opinion asteroids are a great place to go, but mostly for mining. I think the location is likely to be Mars. This Mars colony will start off with a few thousand people, and then it may grow over 100 years to a few million people, but it will be there permanently. That should be really exciting, to be alive during that stage of humanity's history.

JF: I have to ask—really? This will really happen?

EA: I really do believe it will. First of all, the key to making it happen is to reduce the cost of transportation into space. My colleague Elon Musk is aiming to get the cost of a flight to Mars down to half a million dollars a person. I think that even if it costs maybe a few million dollars a person to launch to Mars, a colony could be feasible. To me the question is, does it happen in the next 30 years, or does it happen in the next 60 to 70 years? There's no question it's going to happen in this century, and that's a pretty exciting thing.

JF: Apart from the cost of transport, what are the challenges in making that a reality? Are they cost and engineering challenges, or are they basic science problems?

EA: I think it's all about the economics. There is no technological or engineering challenge.

One key to making all this happen is that we need to use the resources of space to help us colonize space. It would have been pretty tough for the settlers who went to California if they'd had to bring every supply they would ever need along with them from the East Coast.

That's why Planetary Resources exists. The near-Earth asteroids, which are very, very close to the Earth, are filled with resources that would be useful for people wanting to go to Mars, or anywhere else in the solar system. They contain precious resources like water, rocket fuel, strategic metals. So first there needs to be a reduction in the cost of getting off the Earth's surface, and then there needs to be the ability to "live off the land" by using the resources in space.

JF: Again—really? To the general public, asteroid mining just has a fantastic-slash-wacky connotation. How practical is this?
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Crazy talk. Fallows is right to be skeptical.

In 10 years or so, what we'd really like to do is get robotic exploration of space in line with Moore's Law [the tech-world maxim that the price for computing power falls by half every 18 months]. Remember, asteroid mining doesn't involve people. We want to transition space exploration from a linear technology into an exponential one, and create an industry that can flourish off of exponential technologies such as artificial intelligence and machine learning.
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Could there be a Moore's Law of robotic space exploration, or is that wishful thinking?
 
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