Comment on Mars Attacks: How Elon Musk's plans to colonize Mars threaten Earth.
brucethemoose@lemmy.world 3 weeks agoEh, none of that is something one casually develops for going to Mars. Is tech that fundamentally transforms the nature of society on Earth and being human, and again, is way more impactful than going to Mars.
Again, the argument I’m trying to make is that, by the time one can settle Mars without supplies from earth, you mind as well get your robotic swarm to make space habitats or something.
Cocodapuf@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Well, that’s not exactly the goal. No nation is really self-sufficient in modern society. Everyone engages in trade. So the question is really, when will a space colony become profitable or maintainable? And that’s trickier to answer, because it isn’t “not for hundreds of years”, but it also isn’t now, it’s somewhere in between.
Cheaper access to space would change the equation immensely. Being cheaper to resupply would mean the colony wouldn’t have to be as profitable to be sustainable. In-situ resource utilisation (using water found off of earth for drinking, oxygen and fuel) will also make an enormous difference as it would reduce the amount of supplies needed from earth. (This is incidentally one of the main goals of NASA’s Artemis program, to figure out how to utilize water resources on the moon)
It was the same situation when Europeans settled the Americas, at first it was just a money suck. Entire colonies were lost, lots of people died, they weren’t really prepared. But then they started to figure out what crops worked there, how to survive harsh winters, etc. Once they figured out how to make the most of this new land, they thrived. Unfortunately, the way they treated the locals was pretty horrific. Fortunately, we’re pretty certain there aren’t any locals on the moon or Mars.
Truth be told, I think a Mars colony won’t happen for quite some time, but I believe a moon colony will certainly happen before 2100. And if we’re lucky, maybe since orbital colonies. That’s where the future really lies, orbital colonies.
brucethemoose@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
I think the (ideal) future looks more like an accelerated Orion’s Arm, where humanity-changing technologies take over.
Again that’s what I’m getting at. We will never be colonizing Mars as squishy humans… We‘ll be augmented, modified, interfaced with mechanized AI, uploaded, maybe even just mechanical intelligences, something like that. We’ll be using nuclear propulsion, at least. There will be no need to worry about drinking water or breathing oxygen because that will be irrelevant.