What Made 400 People Volunteer for a One-Way Mission to Mars?

[mightygoose 92]

the only sim mars player actually on mars... that would get a trixie right>>

[NitzWalsh 0]

I would go there... be a pioneer...

If 400 people went to Mars and settled it permanently, that number would grow through reproduction, and surely other groups of people would follow from Earth.

[A Nonny Moose 8,263]

At least pioneers on Mars would not get what a lot of those moving west got, an arrow in the chest.  A good reason to go to Mars is the reduced gravity.  People with physical stress related problems would be relieved somewhat there, if they could withstand the take-off.

[Athanasius 0]

same reason several million europeans went to America in the 1700s

[Terring 6,476]

Why we should colonize Mars? For the same reason that our ancestors explored and colonize Europe, Asia and Africa. For the same reason that later some of them, dared to explored and colonized the New World.

For the same reason that our civilization doesn't still stay in caves and we doesn't eat bananas anymore.

Colonization of Mars is not such an bad idea. Personally, i would like to be one of the first people on Mars. Yes I'll miss a lot my parents and the songs of the birds... but my children will thank me.

[A Nonny Moose 8,263]

Before we go running off to Mars, maybe we should look at our sister planet, Luna?  It is probably no more difficult to set up housekeeping there than on Mars, and you at least get a chance to have relatives visit you.  After you've been there a while, you won't be able to come back because of physiological changes.

In both scenarios, terraforming is out.  So everyone will be living in arcologies.  Don't forget to pay your air tax.

[Easy Bakes 253]

They could pull the Spirit Rover out of the sand. And those rovers give hope to how long equipment may last there.

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2010/01/100105-mars-rover-six-video.html

[Ocram's Razr 964]

Mars is best suited for supporting life. The way to make it even better was to increase core activity and transfer some carbon dioxide from Venus to Mars then turn some of Venus's CO2 into O2 which would make 2 habitable planets, a tropical one (Venus) and a colder one (Mars).

Personally, Space intimidates me.

[morriswalters 16]

Space should intimidate you, it's very unfriendly. However as to why people would volunteer for a one way trip to Mars, there is the desire to do what most people will never do. Stand on the surface of another world. If you wish to dream about what could be done think of a Dyson Sphere or a Ring World. Larry Niven's Ring World series describes it quite well.

[Ocram's Razr 964]

I read the first chapter of Ring World in middle or high school. It looked interesting. I still have to finish reading the books I own before I check out new ones from the library.

[A Nonny Moose 8,263]

Dyson spheres are the ultimate engineering dream.  Imagine having a closed construct that enclosed a star in the goldilocks zone.  What a concept.  In our case, it would have a radius of 1 AU (about 8 light minutes).  Let's see if I remember the formula for the volume of a sphere ...  ⁴/₃π.r³, I think.  That's roughly 3,369,282,722,762,313,600,000,000 cubic miles.  Used 10 places for pi, and 93,000,000 miles for 1 au, so this is probably out by a few million cubic miles.  Neat high precision calculator though.  If you use the American scale, this is about three and one third septillion cubic miles.  What you do about Mercury and Venus in this sort of thing is not clear.  and the question is, do you include enough space for the orbit of the moon?

"A man's reach must exceed his grasp, or what's a heaven for?"

[Easy Bakes 253]

Originally posted by: A Nonny Moose

Dyson spheres are the ultimate engineering dream.  Imagine having a closed construct that enclosed a star in the goldilocks zone.  What a concept.  In our case, it would have a radius of 1 AU (about 8 light minutes).  Let's see if I remember the formula for the volume of a sphere ...  ⁴/₃π.r³, I think.  That's roughly 3,369,282,722,762,313,600,000,000 cubic miles.  Used 10 places for pi, and 93,000,000 miles for 1 au, so this is probably out by a few million cubic miles.  Neat high precision calculator though.  If you use the American scale, this is about three and one third septillion cubic miles.  What you do about Mercury and Venus in this sort of thing is not clear.  and the question is, do you include enough space for the orbit of the moon?

"A man's reach must exceed his grasp, or what's a heaven for?"

quote>

you would have to "remove" almost every small rock inside the sphere, wouldnt want any  possible impacts.

the same for outside the sphere. In most theorys ( sci fi books)  they would use all the material from planets, asteroids comets  to build  the sphere, which would probably require the ability to tranform matter into other forms and if we could do that we wouldnt need the Sphere.

[mightygoose 92]

better math http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=volume+of+a+sphere+radius+1AU

[A Nonny Moose 8,263]

Originally posted by: mightygoose

better math http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=volume+of+a+sphere+radius+1AUquote>

Well, you know how us engineering students are.  We use a slide rule of thumb.

Actually, thinking about this, creating the sphere would indeed use up the entire solar system, and maybe not even then would there be enough material.  You would need a force shield on the outside to stop incoming stray rocks, and quite a thick substrate because it would have to support agriculture including a reasonable water table, etc., etc.  I suspect that all this is Pie in the Sky with no Meringue.  Gravitational forces would probably tear it apart.

Getting back to Mars, what makes anyone think any material could be taken from any other planet to use in terraforming Mars?  We can barely get there, and you want to gallivant around the solar system?  You really don't want more CO₂ if you are trying for global warming, you want methane which is 4 times more potent.  Mars is only barely in the golidlocks zone, so it would be a perpetual fight unless you just went with arcologies.  As for Venus, it is not in the goldilocks zone, and the surface temperature is beyond the pale, to say nothing of the H₂SO₄ clouds.