
Mars: Inside the High-Risk, High-Stakes Race to the Red Planet - pmcpinto
http://www.nationalgeographic.com/magazine/2016/11/spacex-elon-musk-exploring-mars-planets-space-science/
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mortenjorck

      Suggesting that humans might find refuge on Mars after 
      messing up Earth is “ethically and technically absurd,” says 
      McKay. “I think we need to take the view that failure is not 
      an option. The notion of Mars as a lifeboat makes the Titanic 
      look like a happy ending.”
    

Much as I admire Musk's drive to not only explore but colonize Mars, I have to
agree with this sentiment. Viewing Mars as a "backup" for Earth is like
relying on the Commodore 64 in your closet as a backup in case your MacBook
Pro gets fried.

~~~
Retric
Humanity is not the only thing that can 'mess up' earth. If we had 10 years
warning that a small rogue planitoid say 300 miles wide was going to hit earth
we would not be able to stop it. Sure, this is an ultra low risk but having a
backup is still useful.

~~~
milkytron
Interesting point on the planetoid. You don't think in 10 years humanity could
come up with some strategy to stop the impact?

~~~
Retric
Not even close. Picture a rock that could cover all of Virginia, DC, and
Maryland at the same time and tall enough the ISS would hit it.

~~~
arcticfox
I'd be interested to see someone do the math, but I'd be curious how much
energy it would take to deflect it by hitting it with nukes. It seems like if
we could hit it 1 year out it would take well under 1 m/s to make it miss. How
much energy that would take, I have no idea.

~~~
Retric
1m/s * 1 year = 31,556.926 kilometers considering the earth has gravity I
don't think you could really go much lower than that unless it was really
close to missing us in the first place.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ceres_(dwarf_planet)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ceres_\(dwarf_planet\))
is is a little smaller than that and estimated at 9 x 10^20 kg. So call it
10^21kg.

KE = 1/2 m * v^2 (mass in kg, v in m/s = joule) but a bomb is not 100%
efficient call it 50%. So, 1/2 * 10^21 * 1^2 /50% = 10^21 joule.

Largest bomb ever detonated is = ~2.1×10^17 J so ~5,000 of them is kind of an
ultra optimistic estimate. Not that we actually have 5,000 of them. Worse each
of those weigh ~60,000 lb so we now need build rocks, and even build the
infrastructure to build the rockets to get 300,000,000 kg out there not just
LEO.

At a rough ballpark 1/2 the worlds GDP for 8 years is not going to get you
there. Worse that 50% was crazy optimistic.

~~~
arcticfox
Forgot to respond, but nice analysis! Thanks! Interesting how it comes out to
something definitely infeasible, but still in the approximate realm of the
world's nuclear capability (~16k of various sizes exist today).

The rocketry there would seem to be the impossibly limiting factor.

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simonh
I think the discussion of the kinds of risks Mars might act as a hedge against
are being trivialised a bit. It's not all just about asteroids. Elon has
researched this pretty thoroughly. If you want to really understand what he's
talking about look up Nick Bostrom, but here are a few.

* a nanotechnology disaster

* Implementation of technologies that enable a global super-stable oppressive state.

* An AI disaster along the lines of a paper clip optimiser

* An AI or augmented intelligence that deprecates all lesser intelligences.

* The film version of I Robot.

* Biotech plague.

* Regression to a stable social and biological state optimising for lower intelligence or stagnation.

The way I think about this is that it's not just a backup. It's also
deliberately introduced variation in environment and social structures that
variegated Hunan civilization. Well develop technologies and social structures
we wouldn't otherwise have that might help mitigate some of these risks. Semi-
isolated from Earth, it would be at least partially protected from many of
these threats. Of course, it could introduce new threats, but the isolation
would work to protect Earth to some extent in that eventuality.

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Global_catastro...](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Global_catastrophic_risk&action=edit&section=3)

~~~
dogma1138
> a nanotechnology disaster

This would also likely to affect mars.

> Implementation of technologies that enable a global super-stable oppressive
> state.

And what prevents them from just sending a few nukes to mars?

>An AI disaster along the lines of a paper clip optimiser

Mars and earth are going to share some form of a network, an AI disaster on
earth is not likely to be contained to earth and vise versa.

>An AI or augmented intelligence that deprecates all lesser intelligences.

Same as the above, also what prevents that AI from building spaceships and
exterminating the humans on mars?

>The film version of I Robot.

Again what prevents them from building spaceships of their own?

> Biotech plague.

Plagues cross oceans they can cross interstellar space also, it's unlikely
that any sort of natural/unintentional release could be contained in an era in
which interplanetary travel is a common occurrence, especially if people would
seek refuge on Mars, and there is nothing stopping some death cult that
releases a bioengineered plague intentionally from infecting mars also.

>Regression to a stable social and biological state optimising for lower
intelligence or stagnation.

Again nothing about Mars implicitly provide protection against the stagnation
of human culture or knowledge.

The point is simply any large scale disaster would either not be contained to
a single planet, or would still leave earth a considerably more habitable
place than Mars.

None of these reasons are of course a reason why we shouldn't go to Mars.

~~~
simonh
I addressed this in my post.

> Semi-isolated from Earth, it would be at least partially protected from many
> of these threats.

It introduces a significant time and space gap, a firewall between Part of
human civilization and the rest of it. It's not a guaranteed solution, but I
think it could give us a much better chance. I'll counter your line of
challeng - how do you know for certain it won't help mitigate any of these
risks?

You also seem not to have noticed my argument concerning introducing a source
of variegation into our civilization that might help us cope with some of
these threats better.

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danblick
I just finished "The Dark Side of the Moon" by Gerard De Groot, which is a
history of the American space program focused on the key people involved and
their motivations.

The author argues that a major problem with the manned space program was that
_we had no rational need to send humans to space_.

Was going to the moon about science? National defense? International relations
and prestige? None of these arguments held up. (Most scientists hated the huge
amount of tax money spent on manned space flight that could have been spent
more efficiently. The case for sending people instead of robots was based more
on fantasy than on reason.)

The story makes Eisenhower seem very wise (for trying to avoid getting into a
pointless and wasteful race against the Russians and his awareness of how the
military industrial complex would serve its own interests at the expense of
the nation as a whole). It even points out that Kennedy was nowhere near as
enthusiastic about the moon landing as you'd assume and regretted locking the
nation into an expensive promise he couldn't get out of.

Quotes from astronauts who visited the moon portray it as "magnificent
desolation":

The first thing that springs to mind is the vivid contrast between the Earth
and the Moon... I'm sure that to a geologist the moon is a fascinating place,
but this monotonous rock pile, this withered, Sun-seared peach pit out of my
window offers absolutely no competition to the gem it orbits. Ah, the Earth,
with its verdant valleys, its misty waterfalls... I'd just like to get our job
done and get out of here. - Michael Collins, Apollo 11

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sandworm101
"...what space can do to a human body could be a huge problem. “They’re going
to be sick when they get there.”"

I see this time and time again, but nobody has given me a proper reason why we
cannot send a spinning ship, one where zero-gravity wouldn't be an issue.
Radiation is certainly a problem, but again that is a matter of
shielding/weight. I don't see any monumental reason why we couldn't send
perfectly healthy people. The only real issue seems one of cost.

~~~
thescriptkiddie
The possibility of practical artificial "gravity" isn't the only reason that's
a stupid argument. We regularly send people to the ISS for longer than it
takes to get to Mars and they're fine. Sure, it takes them a few hours to
fully re-adapt to gravity and a few months to regain their muscle mass, but
they're not sick.

~~~
gph
No we don't.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_spaceflight_records#Te...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_spaceflight_records#Ten_longest_human_space_flights)

~~~
blhack
The trip to mars takes about 6 months (~180 days). Every single record in the
table you linked is longer than that.

~~~
gph
Ah, I guess I was assuming round-trip. Article mentioned 3 years as the likely
shortest round-trip.

I suppose if we are talking about a one-way death trip then yea. Maybe some
people will do that initially, but long-term you'd have to think our goal of
reaching Mars would include being able to return.

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altonzheng
I can only imagine the feeling that those engineers got in the room the moment
that rocket relanded on earth. Wish I could experience it

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SubiculumCode
This article is one big downer. Being realistic is one thing, but this read
more like a hit piece than anything else.

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partycoder
We want to terraform mars, but we are marsforming earth instead. With many
people still not accept climate change, things are going to get harder.

Not all ice on earth is water. Some of it is methane. Methane is a much more
powerful greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide. Once the arctic permafrost
containing methane starts melting, produces a strong greenhouse effect that
raises temperatures, reinforcing the melting process by making it faster...

This is believed to be linked to the Permian Extinction event. In that sense,
this would be an existential threat that needs to be managed carefully.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arctic_methane_emissions](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arctic_methane_emissions)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clathrate_gun_hypothesis](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clathrate_gun_hypothesis)

~~~
burkaman
I'm guessing the downvotes are because nearly everyone on this website accepts
the reality of climate change, and your comment doesn't seem that relevant.

~~~
partycoder
Note that I also added some information about a very specific side effect of
global warming, which is less often discussed.

~~~
calgoo
Its already happening in the Russian tundra.

[http://siberiantimes.com/ecology/casestudy/news/n0681-now-
th...](http://siberiantimes.com/ecology/casestudy/news/n0681-now-the-proof-
permafrost-bubbles-are-leaking-methane-200-times-above-the-norm/)

~~~
hash-set
"It's already happening"\--um, you realize that "it's" been happening on this
planet for millions of years, right? The climate changes, all over the world.
Before humans, after humans.

~~~
partycoder
Yes, but it is in our best interest to not accelerate the process, especially
before we have figured out how deal with the side-effects.

Among the obvious side effect --raise in temperature-- the oceans starts
absorbing carbon dioxide and methane becoming more acid, acid enough to for
example erode the shells of snails.

