Colonizing the bottom of the ocean would be orders of magnitude cheaper, and more practical. Same with Antarctica. And there’s a reason we don’t do that.
I hate to sound anal, but I don’t think the public appreciates how monumentally difficult space travel is, and how it gets exponentially worse with every ounce you have to carry. Even with theoretical, morally questionable tech like fission fragment drives or whatever.
I love doing fully realistic space flight simulators in virtual reality – programs that run at 18-30 FPS from the sheer computational load of doing physics calculations and accurate particle collisions of light, gas flow exchanges, liquids , and such in real time.
I’m nuts and the idea of being alone on a desolate planet in a space suit is highly relaxing for me:
I did the “solo” Mars scenario.
Even with the ability to quick save and load, and manipulate the environmental conditions to be completely in my favor (best possible landing spot, best weather, optimal genetic splicing and variation for plants), I died.
Everyone who goes to Mars – is going to die.
The moon is a different story, and a testing grounds to see if humanity has what it takes.
Physics calculations are renowned for using simplifications to approximate results.
That doesn’t work for space. One cannot assume an object is a perfect sphere experiencing no friction and have any hope of success. And that’s just the first of many forces that are dropped to make the math easy.
Both have unique challenges, but overall brucethemoose is right about the overall cost comparison. For instance, we could easily have a “space elevator” equivalent to the bottom of the ocean, it’d be a fraction of the cost of maintaining a freight network to mars. Pressure is hard to deal with, but not as difficult as it is to get shit out of a gravity well as dense as Earth.
Do people really think we’ll colonize mars soon?
Colonizing the bottom of the ocean would be orders of magnitude cheaper, and more practical. Same with Antarctica. And there’s a reason we don’t do that.
I hate to sound anal, but I don’t think the public appreciates how monumentally difficult space travel is, and how it gets exponentially worse with every ounce you have to carry. Even with theoretical, morally questionable tech like fission fragment drives or whatever.
Hey.
I love doing fully realistic space flight simulators in virtual reality – programs that run at 18-30 FPS from the sheer computational load of doing physics calculations and accurate particle collisions of light, gas flow exchanges, liquids , and such in real time.
I’m nuts and the idea of being alone on a desolate planet in a space suit is highly relaxing for me:
I did the “solo” Mars scenario.
Even with the ability to quick save and load, and manipulate the environmental conditions to be completely in my favor (best possible landing spot, best weather, optimal genetic splicing and variation for plants), I died.
Everyone who goes to Mars – is going to die.
The moon is a different story, and a testing grounds to see if humanity has what it takes.
Recently, they cancelled an unmanned rover whose sole purpose was to go look at some moon ice, due to budget cuts.
That should give you a sense of our overall preparation level for Mars.
The physics calculations aren’t what makes it run at 30fps; it’s more the graphic rendering. Physics are easy to do. Making them look nice isn’t.
What?
Physics calculations are renowned for using simplifications to approximate results.
That doesn’t work for space. One cannot assume an object is a perfect sphere experiencing no friction and have any hope of success. And that’s just the first of many forces that are dropped to make the math easy.
Pressure is way harder to deal with than a vacuum, not that i think mars is happening any time soon
The ocean is a lot closer though, which helps
Both have unique challenges, but overall brucethemoose is right about the overall cost comparison. For instance, we could easily have a “space elevator” equivalent to the bottom of the ocean, it’d be a fraction of the cost of maintaining a freight network to mars. Pressure is hard to deal with, but not as difficult as it is to get shit out of a gravity well as dense as Earth.