
Humans Will Never Colonize Mars - cribbles
https://gizmodo.com/humans-will-never-colonize-mars-1836316222
======
ashtonbaker
> Air pressure on Mars is very low; at 600 Pascals, it’s only about 0.6
> percent that of Earth.

> The thin atmosphere also means that heat cannot be retained at the surface.

> Once temperatures get below the -40 degrees F/C mark, people who aren’t
> properly dressed for the occasion can expect hypothermia to set in within
> about five to seven minutes.

Such a thin atmosphere will not transfer heat as effectively as it does on
earth, so hypothermia due to exposure to -40 degree Martian air is not as big
of a concern as it would be on Earth. Interesting points otherwise, though.

~~~
b_tterc_p
help me wrap my head around that. If you’re in -40 in a low pressure
atmosphere, it doesn’t cool you down faster because there’s less mass for your
heat to transfer to?

Does that mean things don’t cool down in a vacuum? Is there a weird curve
where by at some point having less cold gas arounds you means you’ll cool down
faster instead of slower?

~~~
danbruc
Heat transfer happens by heat conduction and heat radiation, so even in a
vacuum you will radiate heat away in the form of infrared photons, at least if
the vacuum is not at a higher temperature. Heat radiation is however a less
efficient process then heat transfer in a sufficiently dense environment. That
is also an issue for spacecrafts, they need rather large radiators to radiate
away excess heat into space.

~~~
mytailorisrich
Vacuum does not have a temperature.

You would probably need very little thermal insulation, if any, for a space
walk around Pluto as heat from sun will be quite low as well.

~~~
danbruc
If you place a thermometer in space sufficiently far away from all heat
sources, it will eventually reach 2.73 K, the temperature of the cosmic
microwave background. I am not sure about the correct terminology but at least
in some sense this is the temperature of outer space.

~~~
mytailorisrich
Vacuum has no temperature. What you describe is a black body spectrum
'temperature'.

~~~
danbruc
That is why I said that I am not sure about the precise terminology. But it
still does not change the fact that an object placed in the vacuum of outer
space will eventually reach the temperature of the cosmic microwave
background, i.e. the temperature of the electromagnetic radiation filling
outer space. Also not that I am not talking about any vacuum, I am
specifically talking about vacuum of outer space.

~~~
mytailorisrich
It does not change the fact that vacuum, any vacuum, has no temperature...

~~~
danbruc
Also no perfect vacuum exists which renders this rather irrelevant for
discussing what happens in real situations. I also did some reading to figure
out the correct terminology - it is certainly correct to say that a perfect
vacuum has no _thermodynamic temperature_ as it is defined by the state of
motion of the particles making up the system you want to assign a temperature
to, however I am still not convinced that it is wrong to associate a
temperature with a vacuum based on the electromagnetic radiation filling it.

~~~
mytailorisrich
Yes, vacuum has no temperature.

The energy of any radiation that may be going through a vacuum at a given
instant is not a property of the vacuum (and is not an actual temperature).

I'll leave it here as I think I have repeated the same thing enough though I
am not sure it has been heard.

~~~
danbruc
You keep repeating a point I never disagreed with, a perfect vacuum has no
_thermodynamic temperature_. My issue with that is that I think it is a too
narrow viewpoint for the comment I initially replied to. If one understands
temperature as what a thermometer measures, then the temperature of a vacuum
will be the temperature of its walls, it will not magically show »undefined«
because you insist that temperature means _thermodynamic temperature_.

~~~
mytailorisrich
You say you don't disagree but you keep disagreeing...

I made a simple, yet fundamental statement. It's either true or false. There
is no need to argue as if you had to out-do me in any way.

Vacuum cannot have a temperature. This follows immediately from the
definitions.

This also means that the temperature of a vacuum's "walls", by which I'm
guessing you mean particles in 'contact' with the vacuum, is just the
temperature of these particles. It's not an indication of any "vacuum
temperature".

Have a nice day.

~~~
DuskStar
Vacuum cannot have a temperature, by the definition you are using. This makes
it useless for certain tasks, such as determining the temperature an object
within a vacuum will stabilize at over time. Thus, we use a different
definition of temperature - because saying 'the temperature an object will
stabilize at' every time instead of 'temperature' is really wordy.

~~~
mytailorisrich
> Vacuum cannot have a temperature

That's what I have been repeating, yes.

You seem to agree with me since you explain how 'temperature' may be assigned
to vacuum as a fudge. This is a dangerous thing to do as equilibrium
temperature does not depend on the vacuum itself but on any radiations
present.

------
nolok
The way I see it, there are two goals to human space travels.

The first, very distant one, is to seed ourselves among the stars to avoid
being erased from existence by anything that would threaten our existence on
earth, from man made cataclysm to natural event.

The second, with much more immediate result on a human scale, is that every
time we face such a challenge it's only an opportunity for us to develop a new
technology. Eg sure lower gravity will be an issue, until we figure out how to
regulate gravity on a ship / base. That might seem far fetched but just
looking at the tech invented to put human on the moon how many of those were
far fetched beforehand ? Give people a challenge for tomorrow and watch them
work at solving it.

~~~
mr_crankypants
I honestly think that both of those are weak reasons. The first is a problem
for other generations; on our own time scale we should focus on the problems
that affect us on our own time scale. The second is just not compelling; space
exploration is hardly the only endeavor that produces spinoff technology, and
it's far from certain that it's the best or most productive way to do so.

There has only ever been one goal that has actually driven us to push our
horizons further out into space, and I think it's the only one that really
makes sense: We do it for the challenge and for the adventure.

As John F. Kennedy so famously put it, "We choose to go to the moon in this
decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they
are hard; because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our
energies and skills."

~~~
cr0sh
I honestly think the first one mentioned will become a "primary" reason as
soon as the first largish "came from the direction of the sun" doomsday
asteroid slams into us, and makes us rethink some of our priorities.

Assuming we survive the event - and assuming it isn't "The Killer Event".

You know - something largish that takes out 3-4 major cities, and we didn't
see until much too late (like the near-space flyby we just had - though it was
smaller).

Then again - we are talking human society here - so even that probably
wouldn't cause us to sit up and think "you know, we're kinda sitting ducks
here" and do something about it collectively.

I mean, look at the number of natural disasters that happen all over the world
virtually every year in the same spots, yet do people really do anything to
improve their chances next time, or do they say "it won't happen again next
year" \- and it doesn't, until a few years later when it does.

We're such a short sighted species for these kinds of things, and the dumb
thing is, we know for absolute certainty that these events will happen, but
because we don't know when, for some reason we decide to put off what we
should be doing NOW, because when it happens, we'll either not survive the
event (and everything we have ever done was all for naught - a footnote at
best), or what remains won't have the means, perhaps ever, to rise to a
similar level of technology to prevent it happening again.

~~~
microtherion
It's really hard to conceive of any disaster which would leave Earth less
habitable than Mars.

------
s_r_n
The author is listing facts about Mars that are pretty basic and well-known in
the first two paragraphs and proceeds to talk in generalized terms about how
we will never get around these obstacles. These are all basic facts about Mars
that the engineers working on these problems know very well. Simply listing
these facts as proof that colonizing Mars will never work seems overly
pessimistic.

~~~
keiru
Well, I agree there is not that much merit in the article for pointing out the
obvious, but if the emperor has no clothes someone needs to say it.

The engineers working on these problems will never solve them in a cost-
effective manner. Never. A lot of new cool tech will come out of the space
race, but never will (current versions of) humans live in a self-sustained
Mars. And I'm not counting exporting scientific research and souvenir rocks as
being self-sustainable.

PS: I'm not rejecting the idea that eventually big actors like states might
compete for automated resource extraction and production of war commodities,
nuke tests, etc. It's just human habitability that I question.

------
jpm_sd
This is a really well-written, thorough article. Here's another way to think
about it:

Before we try to colonize Mars, we should try colonizing Canada. It's warmer
than Mars! It has air and water, so it should be easy! And yet:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Population_of_Canada#/media/Fi...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Population_of_Canada#/media/File:Canada_Population_density_map.jpg)

~~~
bvanderplaats
If you watch the opening credits of The Expanse, you'll see the moon is almost
entirely populated, yet if you look closely at the Earth shot, Tibet is
basically dark.

Even in a work of fiction we can't seem to make use of the entire Earth!

------
thisisbrians
Something that this article hints at but seems not to explicitly state: there
is near-zero economic incentive for anyone to establish or occupy a colony on
Mars, and even if there is some incentive, it is not worth the cost. Just the
sum of money required to fly the people there alone would be absolutely
staggering, and ironically, would create enough greenhouse gas emissions from
the launch vehicles to put our environmental issues here on Earth into an even
bleaker perspective.

Halting the damage we are doing to our own planet is urgent and important.
Colonizing Mars is way less of either.

~~~
markonen
Getting, say, a million people to escape velocity would not be significant in
terms of greenhouse emissions, compared to the ~8 trillion revenue passenger
kilometres flown annually (which itself is a tiny fraction of global
emissions).

Also, if you assume that those colonists are not coming back, their exodus is
likely to be carbon negative for Earth.

~~~
bsmith
Excellent points. I want to follow up with some back-of-the-envelope math on
this later, if I have time. My intuition was that it takes a whole heck of a
lot of fuel to get someone to even LEO velocity. Would love to see how that
corresponds with air travel.

------
thinkpad20
Not to be "that guy," but I think the real reason we'll never colonize Mars is
simply that we're going to run out of time. Climate collapse and/or nuclear
war will probably set in long before we have the technology or wherewithal to
terraform a planet millions of miles away. We may be only a decade or two from
severe environmental catastrophe, which makes the prospect of Mars
colonization pretty far-fetched at best.

To be clear, I don't think studying this is a waste of time. On the off chance
that we get there, that'll be great (setting aside the concerns of this
article of course). It just gives me a sense of a terminally ill person
planning their retirement. Sorry to be the downer here.

------
jnurmine
Robert Zubrin figured out a plausible plan to put a colony on Mars, yet the
article fails to mention Zubrin and his Mars (Semi-)Direct plans.

Colonizing Mars with a small team of experts is possible and within our
technological and financial means to do so within a decade or so.

However, the interesting question to me is not "can/how can Mars be colonized"
but rather why would people move to Mars in the first place.

"Freedom from Earthly oppression (perceived or imaginary)" cannot work as an
argument: a Mars colony will basically have to be run like a prison with
1984-level surveillance. A single crazy person blowing up airlocks or
sabotaging the water or food supply can deal a death blow to the whole colony,
and the cost to rebuild/repopulate will be tremendous, therefore the entire
investment will be watched very closely.

Secondly, the monetary cost of moving to Mars will be huge and will be even
beyond the means of Earth multi-millionaires, reducing the number of possible
colonists. Also, because of the extremely high cost of getting anything to
Mars and a lack of native manufacturing, there can not be a co-operative
ownership of Martian infrastructure, so in practise everything will be owned
by some entity (corporation/government) operating from Earth.

These points might change and "freedom from Earthly oppression" might become a
driver once the colonists become self-sufficient enough to build self-
sustaining underground dwellings with locally produced tools.

Therefore I think a succesful colonization must have two things: firstly, some
kind of business force to fuel the flow of colonists, and secondly colonists
who are not idealists looking for a frontier world freedom utopia, since it
will not be such, at least in the beginning.

As for the business force, I don't know what this could be, maybe mining or
manufacturing or such.

So I don't think the colonization is gated by things like lack of gravity,
surface radiation, or impossibility of terraforming, etc. The lack of a
plausible business model which could profit from having people live on Mars is
the main gating factor.

~~~
keiru
>Colonizing Mars with a small team of experts

Like the thousand people in Antartica right now? I just wouldn't call it
colonization.

>The lack of a plausible business model which could profit from having people
live on Mars is the main gating factor.

Right on the money here. Save for space research, what could you possibly do
on Mars that you couldn't do more cheaply and comfortably in the crowded
Earth? Resource extraction only becomes cost-effective if its self-sufficient
and automated enough, and which point human presence there would be more
comparable to an oil rig than a colony.

~~~
jnurmine
About Antarctica and colonization, yes, I agree it is not colonization, but
then again it cannot be, since no-one can live permanently in Antarctica
because of the treaties (ATS).

"Oil rig workers" or not, if people on Mars would live there until their old
age and death, I'd call them colonists. If they are there on a 3 year
rotation, then nope, not colonists.

(As a side note Antarctica would be the perfect place to learn about eventual
self-sufficient space colonies in an environment which is a softer version of
Mars, without complexities around airlocks, suits, oxygen and the omnipresent
sand etc.)

Earth has limited and dwindling resources but Mars is still completely
untapped. Then again I have no idea what could be so rare or useful to
actually drive the colonization of Mars. I mean maybe something like that
exists already, but I just don't have an idea.

------
skybrian
Headline is speculative and unprovable since "never" is a very long time and
there's no reason to think we are any good at predicting the far future.

But otherwise, it's a good argument. It would be much easier to live
underground, on the ocean, or in Antarctica, and if these aren't worth the
investment, there is much less reason to think the obstacles to living on Mars
are worth taking on.

------
docker_up
I mean, I think it's fairly obvious that we will never be able to colonize
Mars perfectly. It would require constantly sending massive amount of supplies
from Earth to Mars.

The atmosphere is too thin, and the planet itself is too small to maintain a
real atmosphere. Even if we terraformed it using science fiction technology,
most of the atmosphere would escape into space so it would require constantly
producing this atmosphere, requiring a lot of off-planet resources, which is
fundamentally impossible.

In addition, the lack of strong magnetic fields and Van Allen belts means that
cosmic rays would kill everything eventually.

------
jseliger
If you think about all the things that were likely considered improbably or
impossible in 1800, I think it is clear that the possibilities of life in 2219
are not to be assumed from present conditions.

------
stcredzero
Very wrong: [https://www.amazon.com/CASE-MARS-Robert-Zubrin-
dp-0684827573...](https://www.amazon.com/CASE-MARS-Robert-Zubrin-
dp-0684827573/dp/0684827573/)

Everything they object to can be dealt with, including radiation and low
gravity. If close to 1 G turns out to be necessary for human health, we could
build cities as inclined racetrack centrifuges.

Given enough energy, we could not only make fuel in-situ, we could even make
plastics out of the Martian atmosphere. In addition, Mars had geologic
processes which would produce mineral ores. An entire human civilization could
be started on Mars. Historically, this would be analogous to the founding of
the United States, just without the smallpox and killing-off the people
already there, also starting from more desolate conditions. (Instead of just
starting agriculture and industry, we would have to start biospheres.)

------
dahdum
It brings up many interesting challenges and unknowns of living on Mars, but
it comes across as a naysayer's rant. Humans are capable of (and perhaps wired
for) incredible personal sacrifices for the sake of exploration and progress.

Nothing in the article will stop individuals from trying, only government
policy can stop that.

------
rndmize
The fastest and easiest way to colonize space is to advance cybernetics to
being able to transfer a human brain into a machine one. At that point, you
can custom-build any kind of machine body designed for pretty much any
environment, saving the trouble of adapting to the new environment through
genetics (messy, slow, difficult to test) or bringing the environment with you
(terraforming, purpose-build earth-like facilities).

Good on the article for outlining a lot of the issues with this, though I
don't think enough time was spent on the mental aspects. We're adapted to live
in a certain environment - a different one with different, more boring light,
minimal plants, extreme temperatures, no area to roam, etc., is most likely
going to be a miserable experience for all involved.

~~~
AnIdiotOnTheNet
"Transfering" a human mind isn't necessary. If we can create a machine mind
capable of similar cognition to a human one, then that's close enough. It will
effectively be our offspring.

------
lazyjones
[https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=KXhfAAAAIBAJ&sjid=my8M...](https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=KXhfAAAAIBAJ&sjid=my8MAAAAIBAJ&dq=all-
that-constitutes-a-wild-dream-worthy-of-jules-verne&pg=3288%2C6595098)

------
kazinator
> _Once temperatures get below the -40 degrees F /C mark, people who aren’t
> properly dressed for the occasion can expect hypothermia to set in within
> about five to seven minutes._

Okay, but that's the experience in an atmosphere that is 100X thicker than
that of Mars. :)

------
java-man
"will never" is probably an overstatement, but the article does discuss some
interesting points, gestation in lower gravity environment, for example.

~~~
forgotmypw
I think "guests on a robot-colonized Mars" is the more likely scenario.

Humans are poorly adapted to space travel, and it takes a great deal of effort
to keep humans alive in space.

It's a shame about what's happening to our habitat, when you think about it
that way.

~~~
java-man
Mankind is basically too poor and too stupid at the moment. Building a self-
sustaining colony on Mars will require not only tremendous amount of
resources, both material and intellectual, but also a transfer of knowledge -
which will be impeded by the current legal framework, i.e. copyright laws, for
example.

But I do agree with Musk: we must colonize Mars in order to survive the next
extinction event.

~~~
AstralStorm
Mostly too poor and perhaps lacking better engines - we really need nuclear
propulsion at the very least (with concomitant big amounts of radioactive
material) to not spend a year in space just getting there, which could cause
damage, physical and psychological. Or maybe some form of suspended animation.
We cannot really build city sized ships, not yet. That'd require huge space
stations.

Self sustaining architecture is one thing, getting it scaled up is another -
and relatively hard.

Plus design so as to not cause problems related to living in confinement or in
dreary space.

This necessitates at least village scale if not a bigger city.

------
squirrelicus
Underground is the only way to live on Mars. So if you can find people on
Earth who want to spend all their time underground (with no external
food/water/air supply network to fall back on), you have a start.

The next step is finding people who want to live in a permanent totalitarian
technodictatorship, given that one small act, say a minor hvac compromise, is
all that it would take to kill everyone in the Mars colony within hours.
Seriously, on Mars, the consequence of the smallest criminal action is colony
genocide. Think of the social and legal consequences of that. Presumption of
innocence is too expensive when the consequence of crime is everybody dies.

~~~
alexgmcm
Isn't this quite similar to the scientific bases that exist on the Antarctic
though?

I mean I imagine any Mars colony could be incredibly selective about who to
take.

~~~
Filligree
You can be selective about who you take, but only so long as it's a small
group. I'd hesitate to call it a proper colony if there's no way they can ever
raise children there.

~~~
squirrelicus
Some people barely want to birth on Earth, where there's freedom and
opportunity and sights to see and a very vague threat of potential modest
temperature increase where you can just walk away at a snail's pace from the
climate change threats. I wonder what kind of people would want to raise a
child in underground technodictatorial Mars colonies

------
lmilcin
I will overlook bad physics in the article.

The title should really read "Humans Will Never Colonize Mars (using current
technology, that is)"

Just imagine what happens if, finally, we are able to set off a bunch self
replicating drones that will collect materials and fuel from across solar
system and set it off to deliver raw materials in the direction of Mars. We
might not even need Mars, we would just build platforms in space.

It is not really that inconceivable. The solution isn't outside the realm of
physics. It really is just a bit of programming (not even AI) and kind of
technological moonshot program (ie create a system of space factories that can
gather and process raw materials up to the point where they can replicate
themselves, creating also a bunch of drones that can scour solar system for
raw materials and deliver variety of them to the factories).

------
La-ang
Well for fact, humans shouldn't colonize any other planet until they clean up
this one damn it..

------
gnode
I see no technical reason for why Mars could not be home to humans, or even an
economically self-sufficient society, in the future. That said, it is
inhospitable, and once the first people have set foot there, I see little
reason why it would be more attractive a place to live than Antarctica.

A major appeal of Mars is stated to be in case Earth becomes inhospitable,
although it seems to me that it would be easier / cheaper to create self-
sustaining colonies underground on Earth with nuclear energy and hydroponics,
yet even this isn't being done.

------
Mikeb85
Honestly, I agree with the author. We'll set up a few bases, it'll take
decades, and by the time we come close to having the technology to make Mars
somewhat inhabitable we'll have discovered a more hospitable planet and have
the spaceship tech to get there.

~~~
aidenn0
Assuming you are talking about extrasolar planets: Outer space is far less
hospitable than mars, and the timeframes involved in getting to even very
close stars means living aboard the ships traveling there for an extended
period of time.

~~~
Mikeb85
> timeframes involved in getting to even very close stars means living aboard
> the ships traveling there for an extended period of time

At our current level of technology. Colonizing Mars is likely 50-100 years
away, within that time frame it's very conceivable that we might develop the
ability to travel between stars quickly.

~~~
aidenn0
There are only 11 stars within 10 light years. None of the exoplanets yet
discovered around them are expected to be more habitable than Mars.

This puts a hard lower boundary of 10 years for travel to an earth-like
exoplanet. If we limit the craft's acceleration to 1g, add a couple of extra
years (about a year to hit 0.9c at 1g acceleration, and then the same amount
of time to slow down on the other end).

------
just_myles
I will say that there are +7 billion human beings on this planet all requiring
their share of resources. We need to do this. Nothing wrong with a dissenting
pov in good faith. That is part of the process and how these kinds of things
work.

------
Gravityloss
Probably closest are antarctic station or long nuclear powered submarine
tours. People don't do it for years continuously.

How does the radiation environment on asteroids compare to Mars? Asteroids are
extremely interesting targets for many reasons.

------
crimsonalucard
What is less far fetched but also unlikely to happen is global warming will be
fixed.

~~~
antisthenes
Going off a tangent here, but global warming is pretty much our alpha-version
of terraforming other planets.

We also have to be clear what the end goal is for being on Mars. Is it to have
a permanent research base or an actual livable planet where you can go outside
and not die without a spacesuit. They're radically different.

------
lleolin
This article was illuminating for me because it makes me second-guess my own
projections of the future; the idea of getting so lost in the hows and whens
of a conceptual challenge that you forget to ask why.

------
gumby
Why are people so obsessed with sending people to do a machine's job?

Let the machines colonize space (and let them create a paradise on earth)

------
adamsb6
One possible motive for large numbers of people to colonize Mars: escaping the
control of Earth governments.

It’s like seasteading except that when you get up to something the governments
really don’t like the cost of intervening is extraordinarily high.

On Mars we can build our society of genetically engineered supermen that
engage in plural marriage, ritual funerary cannabilism, and telekinesis.

~~~
Mikeb85
Only problem is that the only entities that will be able to colonize Mars as
well as project power will be those same Earth governments.

~~~
randyrand
The USA was colonized by the British but is no longer ruled by it.

------
cvaidya1986
Just posting this comment for future Martians to look at. Hi! How's the
weather?

------
t0mbstone
Well yeah, because if they colonized Mars, that would make them Martians

------
tectonic
Yes, and 640K of memory should be enough for anybody.

~~~
nolok
Difference being that one was not actually said by Gates:
[https://www.computerworld.com/article/2534312/the--640k--
quo...](https://www.computerworld.com/article/2534312/the--640k--quote-won-t-
go-away----but-did-gates-really-say-it-.html)

~~~
david-gpu
Besides, it's a reasonable thing to say in specific contexts. Never understood
why it is used to ridicule.

------
pgcj_poster
If this George Dvorsky fellow were a software developer, like me, he would be
smart enough to know that technology advances exponentially, in all fields,
all the time. If you want proof, just compare today's Google Docs to
Wordperfect. It's like, a million times better. Anyway, that means that all
technological problems will be solved sometime in the next few decades. We
probably won't even need to do it ourselves: now that we have AI that can tell
the difference between a bear and a mouse after the millionth try, we
basically have everything we need to build a super-intelligence that can solve
every problem for us.

~~~
bsmith
I disagree and actually think humans are very prone to overestimate how
quickly certain technologies will develop. A good example is self-driving
cars, which are still years – if not decades – away from being truly
production-ready. I'm not even close to being an artificial intelligence
expert, but I know its current capabilities are extremely limited and we are
nowhere close to having a general AI; we don't even see a feasible theoretical
path to get there from where we are today. Getting a computer to conduct
abstract reasoning is very hard.

~~~
pgcj_poster
Well that's obviously wrong because some people used to think that a computer
would never beat a human at chess. It follows logically that no one can ever
overestimate how quickly technology will develop.

~~~
scott_s
The form of your argument is that some people were wrong about a subset of _X_
, therefore the opposite attitude of those people must be true for all of _X_.
That's clearly not a valid argument.

~~~
pgcj_poster
And Bill Gates said that 640K should be enough for anybody.

