Comment by johnea
1 day ago
This is good space science.
Unlike iPhone selfies around the moon, or golf on mars.
Manned space missions are very rarely justified in the modern era.
An unmanned probe doing science for 20 years, or a one shot influenza photo op.
The cost is about the same...
It is important to get people excited about science, and inspire the next generation of scientists rather than choose the cheapest path to ‘good science’.
Without public support, you’ll soon find yourself without any funding. This pretty much explains NASA’s dire funding situation over the last thirty or so years.
You can only get so many people excited about weather balloons and space rock chemistry.
> Manned space missions are very rarely justified in the modern era.
Unless you want to be interplanetary
I'm not an expert, but in my mind if you actually want to make the human species interplanetary, flying small groups of people to the planet won't do anything for it. Send robots to build a base first, and yes that will take a long time. Otherwise you'll just be a species that visited other planets. (which would already be cool though obviously)
Depends on your definition of you .
If it means life , then We don’t need humans to make life interplanetary at all; that is least efficient way to go about it ; we should instead design/choose lifeforms that are most likely to survive the target environment not depend on brittle/expensive life support technology to spread life through the system.
If the you is intelligence , then spreading AI could be a better approach rather than humans who are unlikely to be able evolve to survive in a hostile environment naturally anytime soon.
Humans in our current form in space is always going to expensive tourism no matter how much science fiction likes to pretend otherwise .
It would be very expensive, but not impossible, to make big enough spaceships in which to have suitable life conditions for humans in our current form, including gravity at the terrestrial level and radiation shielding.
Living inside huge spaceships, orbiting around some planets, where everything needed for a permanent stay should be provided, is a far more plausible way for humans to expand in the Solar System, than living on the surface of any planet or satellite of the Solar System.
The experiments with mice on the ISS have indicated that, at least for them, the gravity level at which no health problems appear is around two thirds of the Earth level, and at least one third of the Earth level is needed to avoid very serious health problems. Humans might support a somewhat lower gravity level than mice, but it is not likely that the difference is great.
Except perhaps when floating in the atmosphere of Venus, there is no place in the Solar System where the gravity is suitable for long term living. On the other hand, in a rotating spaceship the gravity level can be adjusted to whatever value is desired. One could build a rotating part also in an underground base, but unlike in a spaceship that would consume energy continuously.
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Given that we're not living in Johnny Quest, let's get over the fictional thinking and focus on real life.
If you want to "live on mars", just bury a cargo container in the Nevada desert and move in.
You'll have the advantages of significantly reduced cosmic radiation, and the grocery store is much closer...