Space Colonies - a fantasy

[Hog Rider]

Actually Hog, you are yet to acknowledge that you were wrong in saying - with total certainty - that Mars being too small to have an atmosphere. Nor have you tried to address the fact that we will either outgrow Earth or the environment will become hostile enough to cause loss of life on an unprecedented scale.

Have you thought about Earth with 100 billion people or what would have to happen to prevent this?

I'm not wrong on the matter of the atmosphere. Earth maintains its atmosphere due to the fact that we have the right amount of gravity to sustain it, and sufficient gaseous matter to sustain our atmospheric pressure. Mars, only having 38% of earth's gravity, and being so much colder as being further from the sun cannot have an earth's type atmosphere. These are the laws of nature. I'm not making it up - if you don't like it take it up with God.

If we had the power to change Mars, then anything the earth can throw at us in terms of "becoming hostile" we would always find it easier to change the earth. Mostly because terraforming a planet this distance from the sun is always going to be easier than terraforming a planet more the 3 million miles further from the sun than this one.

It will always be easier to deal with earth's population by any other means than sending significant amounts of it 3 million miles away. Over crowding is simple not a problem that can ever be solved by colonising Mars.

-- Updated March 11th, 2014, 5:45 pm to add the following --

Something interesting that I don't believe has come up in this discussion is that there already is a manned mission to Mars planned called Mars One.

Please read post number one. The argument is not about can Man land on Mars.

-- Updated March 11th, 2014, 5:58 pm to add the following --

A planet Mars size and distance from the Sun can and has already had present-Earth-like temperatures naturally, .

I presume you are talking about when there was believed to be liquid water on Mars? This is assumed, not confirmed. It is true there was liquid but it is not known what liquid. But lets pretend for a moment that it was in fact water. The only reason water at such a temperature could have existed was when the planet was still hot from it's original formation in the solar system. Sadly those days are past, and water or not, life on such a volcanically active would not have been desirable either there or on earth at that time. In any event those days are long past, and you can't turn back the clock. Mars has cooled down billions of years ago.

Right now the differential day by day on any single point on Mars is far in excess of a year round any points differential on earth; around 100 Kelvin between night and day. At it's hottest, on the equator it ranges from an absolute maximum of 20 degrees C to Minus 80 degrees C. And minus 150 at the poles.

You still seem to be ignoring gravity in terms of long term colonisation.

-- Updated March 11th, 2014, 6:07 pm to add the following --

Actually Hog, you are yet to acknowledge that you were wrong in saying - with total certainty - that Mars being too small to have an atmosphere. Nor have you tried to address the fact that we will either outgrow Earth or the environment will become hostile enough to cause loss of life on an unprecedented scale.

Have you thought about Earth with 100 billion people or what would have to happen to prevent this?

Nature usually finds a way to create a balance, but humans are like a cancerous growth on the earth, (growth, for the sake of growth). In the past, wars and disease were the most effective ways of keeping the population in check. With the world health organization keeping a watch for disease, it's much harder for that method to take hold. Wars, nuclear meltdowns and perhaps the odd asteroid strike, may be the best hope left for the earth.

I think it would be better for all life on earth were humans far less numerous. The way we continue to destroy more and more habitat, leaving increasingly less room for other living things is possibly a tragedy that will have unimaginable consequences for humans as well as the failure of ecosystems and environments for wildlife. This unbounded greed for more land will destroy us all. But I do not think that we will ever reach a stage where Mars becomes more attractive. The dream of going to Mars is part of the same misplaced ideology that is currently destroying Earth. Mars is only good for one thing; a example of where we cannot live, and what we should avoid duplicating here in earth.

I'm totally convinced that humans will step on Mars as they did on the Moon, and in the same way that Lunar exploration is now finished, and the promised colonies on the Moon never came to pass; such is the same fate for Mars. No person would abuse a child in such a way as to want to have it born on Mars. That's the bottom line.

[Jklint]

The dream of going to Mars is part of the same misplaced ideology that is currently destroying Earth. Mars is only good for one thing; a example of where we cannot live, and what we should avoid duplicating here in earth.

Makes complete sense to me.

Terraforming, space colonies, etc., neither brings hope or salvation. At this time they are only side effects of what we expect technology to accomplish in the future which has its own mythic Hollywood aspect. These "hopes" are less entrenched in science than science fiction, an extremely dangerous bet to make.

But we do have at least some means to terra "reform" this planet called Home instead of so rampantly deforming it as we so clearly have done. To accomplish even that we need to know much more about its myriad processes which is still a major mystery to much of science.

Besides, if we are so decadent as to have degraded this planet so badly what right have we to live on any other planet? Are we a "hit & run" species"? I have no problem with eventually extending - regardless of time required - our technologies to other worlds in a kind of pioneering quest which is as much a source of revelation as lebensraum or in the somewhat hyperbolic words of the late Carl Sagan "to become citizens of the cosmos" but not for the purposes of escaping our ineptitude and outright criminality on this one.

Good luck with trying to recreate or finding one you can actually immigrate to. Too many variables between Now & Then can easily negate that scenario. For now I prefer "the bird in the hand" approach.

[Sy Borg]

Hog, I'm not interested enough to continue. I still feel you greatly underestimate both technological progress and also the desire for people to embrace adventure. Meanwhile, no matter what I say, you believe we will never achieve the tech or consider it a worthy project.

I think our future tech in a century or three will be beyond our imagination and I'm not prepared to write off our potentials, including potentials to utilise resources in ways we can't imagine today.

We've reached an impasse where each anticipates a different unprovable future.

[Eckhart Aurelius Hughes]

Indeed, there does seem to be an impasse. After reading the topic, considering the rate of technological progress, considering terraforming (with disagreement over degree of terraforming possible not whether some terraforming can be done), considering bold, historical colonization despite great risk and cost with the historic technology, and even looking at the already present, emerging technologies listed:

• Genetically-modified humans
• More fuel-efficient, cost-efficient travel, namely that using methods other than burning rocket fuel
• Space elevators
• 3D printers
• Better spacesuits
• Cyborgs

... I'm not sure how that could lead to the conclusion that we will never, ever colonize Mars, such as in a few hundred years when those technologies have improved as much as telecommunications or ground-travel has in the past few hundred years. Hence the impasse.

For those who still, after considering all those points already discussed, still believe we will never, ever colonize Mars, I ask the following questions in hopes better mutual understanding can get us over this impasse.

• 1. Do you believe human beings will ever step foot on Mars like we already have on the Moon? If not, why not? If so, roughly how many humans do you think will have stepped foot on Mars in the next 200 years? In the next 200 years, what do you think will be the longest any one person will have stayed on Mars and why?
  
  2. Do you believe human beings will colonize other planets and/or moons? Why or why not?
  
  3. How fast would you estimate our fastest spaceship will be in 100 years? Why?
  
  4. Roughly how much do you estimate the cost to transport a 10lb payload to Mars will be in 100 years? Why?
  
  5. Once (if ever) we had the technology to transport a human being to Mars and let them walk along its surface in a spacesuit, much like humans who went to the Moon or who now are in space, how much do you think such a trip for a single tourist could auction off for at first?
  
  6. How much do you think a spacesuit that performs at least the same functions as one does now would weigh in 200 years?
  
  7. Do you think that in thousands of years some humans will have either evolved or been genetically engineered to be more adapt at outer-space life like dealing with lower gravities and increased space radiation?
  
  8. If you had to guess yes or no, in 200 years do you think we will have the technology to create personal breathing devices that would allow someone to breath underwater without bringing oxygen from the surface in tanks/tubes presumably by taking oxygen out of the water itself, like artificial gills? I think such a device was portrayed in one of the Star Wars films for reference.
  
  9. In 200 years, what do you roughly estimate will be the longest consecutive time any one person will have spent in outerspace as in not on Earth but in spaceships or on other moons/planets/etc?

Answering these questions might help find how those who maintain that we will never, ever colonize Mars differ roughly speaking in overall view of technological development than the rest of us, hopefully overcoming this impasse by letting us discuss said differences.

[Hog Rider]

The dream of going to Mars is part of the same misplaced ideology that is currently destroying Earth. Mars is only good for one thing; a example of where we cannot live, and what we should avoid duplicating here in earth.

Makes complete sense to me.

Terraforming, space colonies, etc., neither brings hope or salvation. At this time they are only side effects of what we expect technology to accomplish in the future which has its own mythic Hollywood aspect. These "hopes" are less entrenched in science than science fiction, an extremely dangerous bet to make.

But we do have at least some means to terra "reform" this planet called Home instead of so rampantly deforming it as we so clearly have done. To accomplish even that we need to know much more about its myriad processes which is still a major mystery to much of science.

Besides, if we are so decadent as to have degraded this planet so badly what right have we to live on any other planet? Are we a "hit & run" species"? I have no problem with eventually extending - regardless of time required - our technologies to other worlds in a kind of pioneering quest which is as much a source of revelation as lebensraum or in the somewhat hyperbolic words of the late Carl Sagan "to become citizens of the cosmos" but not for the purposes of escaping our ineptitude and outright criminality on this one.

Good luck with trying to recreate or finding one you can actually immigrate to. Too many variables between Now & Then can easily negate that scenario. For now I prefer "the bird in the hand" approach.

Thanks for your wise words.

-- Updated March 12th, 2014, 2:23 pm to add the following --

I'll give my answers in blue for simplicity; though I think I've fielded most of these issues, already.

Indeed, there does seem to be an impasse. After reading the topic, considering the rate of technological progress, considering terraforming (with disagreement over degree of terraforming possible not whether some terraforming can be done), considering bold, historical colonization despite great risk and cost with the historic technology, and even looking at the already present, emerging technologies listed:

• Genetically-modified humans
[color=#0000FF] You mean beings other than humans will colonise Mars! Maybe but with the same provisos I have set forth.[/color]
• More fuel-efficient, cost-efficient travel, namely that using methods other than burning rocket fuel
[color=#0000FF]Such as? Most commentators feel that the age of cheap energy is over. There are many crackpot ideas of using nuclear rockets, with giant springs inside to gather the impact. It is unlikely any human would survive the blast nor would leaving a trail of radioactivity in earth orbit be very nice[/color]
• Space elevators
[color=#0000FF] Interesting in terms of the possibility of orbiting colonies round earth as the last Matt Damon film; not significant for Mars [/color]
• 3D printers
[color=#0000FF] ????[/color]
• Better spacesuits
[color=#0000FF] Any spacesuit has to be a mobile life support, heat and air. able to carry waste. I do not think a colonist would want to life his life in one. Not sure why this is here really.[/color]
• Cyborgs

Whatever that is. Not exactly a human.

... I'm not sure how that could lead to the conclusion that we will never, ever colonize Mars, such as in a few hundred years when those technologies have improved as much as telecommunications or ground-travel has in the past few hundred years. Hence the impasse.

For those who still, after considering all those points already discussed, still believe we will never, ever colonize Mars, I ask the following questions in hopes better mutual understanding can get us over this impasse.

• 1. Do you believe human beings will ever step foot on Mars like we already have on the Moon? If not, why not? If so, roughly how many humans do you think will have stepped foot on Mars in the next 200 years? In the next 200 years, what do you think will be the longest any one person will have stayed on Mars and why?
  I think that a manned mission will probably happen for the same reason that man stepped on the Moon: mainly prestige and winning against the Russians. But the promised colonisation will go the same way it did on the Moon; nothing doing. Not economic, not useful, waste of money; little more to be learned about conditions on the Moon, and harmful to health to stay for very long. It has always been in the interests of NASA to big-up the whole issue and to press for more and more exploration and research. The last mission to Mars was fantastically innovative and a great success. But I do not think putting humans on the surface will achieve anything more than you can already achieve for a tiny fraction of the cost remotely. And as robotics and AI increases in quality the rationale for human exploration becomes more and more remote.
  
  2. Do you believe human beings will colonize other planets and/or moons? Why or why not?
  The discussion has examined Mars for the reason that Mars is the best prospect due to its proximity and relatively benign climate. 400 mph winds, extremes in temperature of minus 160 C to 20 C. And a daily differential of 80 C makes it gentle compared to say Venus. Other bodies in the Solar system all have too little solar radiation or too small in terms of gravity. Nearer the sun: do you want to discuss the problems of Mercury and Venus? I've asked you to say why we would want to colonise other planets or moons and you have not responded.
  3. How fast would you estimate our fastest spaceship will be in 100 years? Why?
  
  Never fast enough to reach other worlds and be economic. No one is going to invest in a project they can never know if successful and never know the result, and never reap any reward. Why - matter tends to infinite mass when approaching the speed of light. I don't think we can change the laws of nature. with each fraction towards the speed of light you will need an increasing amour of energy, and more energy to carry the energy. The phrase diminishing returns comes to mined. The nearest star is 4.5 light years away (27, 000,000,000,000 miles). hitting a speck of dirt at near light speeds is catastrophic. any speed you achieve, as to be accelerated to, and then decelerated from. If you think extra-solar flight is even possibility then let's throw some numbers about. But round trips, and benefits for the earth are nil.
  
  4. Roughly how much do you estimate the cost to transport a 10lb payload to Mars will be in 100 years? Why?
  More not less than now. The cost of Space has increased not decreased since the 1970s. Unless you can imagine and energy source with motive power you aren't going anywhere. Moving things has been achieved with fuel for over 200 years in basically the same way; burning stuff in controlled ways to make thrust.
  
  5. Once (if ever) we had the technology to transport a human being to Mars and let them walk along its surface in a spacesuit, much like humans who went to the Moon or who now are in space, how much do you think such a trip for a single tourist could auction off for at first?
  I already did this one. Several Billion per person, if you took 100 persons. Due to economy of scale. But we are talking about people staying there, having children there and those children living their lives there.
  
  6. How much do you think a spacesuit that performs at least the same functions as one does now would weigh in 200 years?
  Maybe half the weight. I doubt if weight is the issue. They may well be twice the weight but benefit from servo-motive assistance. No one can live their life in a suit. Think about it!
  
  7. Do you think that in thousands of years some humans will have either evolved or been genetically engineered to be more adapt at outer-space life like dealing with lower gravities and increased space radiation?
  No. Evolution is guided by the weak dying. It is not aware of a direction, and would not spontaneously produce progeny that was able to adapt to radiation. low pressure or lack of oxygen. WHilst it might be possible to genetically engineer a new species to cope with low gravity, they would not actually be "human". Why anyone would accept the moral problems with condemning a new species to be forever stuck on an alien planet I can't imagine.
  
  8. If you had to guess yes or no, in 200 years do you think we will have the technology to create personal breathing devices that would allow someone to breath underwater without bringing oxygen from the surface in tanks/tubes presumably by taking oxygen out of the water itself, like artificial gills? I think such a device was portrayed in one of the Star Wars films for reference.
  Not relevant, even if possible which I doubt. You can't create a convenient oxygen/nitrogen atmosphere were these substances do not exist. Underwater it might be possible due to the high concentrations of oxygen, but making it small enough to be practical would be difficult. Star Wars is a complete fantasy. I do not take my scientific ideas from G Lucas.
  9. In 200 years, what do you roughly estimate will be the longest consecutive time any one person will have spent in outerspace as in not on Earth but in spaceships or on other moons/planets/etc?

Quite possibly nil. I seriously doubt if any manned space trips will be made after the next 50 years. If any survive the first attempts at a manned Mars Shot we will have learned a lot about the severe psychological problems of a 2 year trip.

Answering these questions might help find how those who maintain that we will never, ever colonize Mars differ roughly speaking in overall view of technological development than the rest of us, hopefully overcoming this impasse by letting us discuss said differences.

Cheap energy is over for the foreseeable future. The next generation of energy will offer us electrical rather then combustible fuel. As computer technology improve (exponentially) as it has been; this will make automatic, AI, and remotely controlled space programmes far more likely, whilst humans continue to look inward to virtual experiences. Whilst space travel will always be enormously expensive; robotic exploration will always be safer and cheaper. At the same time exploration of the inner spaces of the mind and imagination through computer technology with sensory interfaces will be increasingly cheaper. Now we consider why anyone would want to live their entire lives and build a family in which their children will live and grow in an alien environment? Even if we could overcome the problems of Martian life; living in Mars will always be wretched and second rate compared to the home planet wherein we have evolved to survive.

Mars will never provide earth with anything it can't get right here.

[Jklint]

This may be a stupid question coming so late in the discussion but why would we want to colonize Mars in the first place? If we can't terraform the planet at least partially akin to what Earth supplies, what is the point in colonizing it and the incredible expense that would incur?

What is the return on investment in colonizing and what purpose does it serve? We would be as far removed from a truly habitable planet on Mars as if we stayed put right here and spent the money instead on research which I think would eventually allow for a greater perspective as to what is possible, desirable and most importantly feasible and economically extensible.

[Hog Rider]

This may be a stupid question coming so late in the discussion but why would we want to colonize Mars in the first place? If we can't terraform the planet at least partially akin to what Earth supplies, what is the point in colonizing it and the incredible expense that would incur?

What is the return on investment in colonizing and what purpose does it serve? We would be as far removed from a truly habitable planet on Mars as if we stayed put right here and spent the money instead on research which I think would eventually allow for a greater perspective as to what is possible, desirable and most importantly feasible and economically extensible.

Exactly my point. Well spoken. THis is the thinking that led me to propose the thread in the first place. Every example of human colonisation was premised by the need for bringing stuff back. You cannot bring anything back from Mars, economically even if you could pick up gold bars from the surface.

The reason I think this question is interesting is that I have held the assumption that humans will someday colonise the entire galaxy given enough time. I was eight years old when Neil Armstrong did his thing; 2001 A Space Odyssey was the big film of the time; and everyone was promising moon bases by the year 1995. Where are those tourist trips to the Moon? The answer to that question leads to the thread topic.

It's only with facing the truth of the hostility of space to the frail human form; the truly vast distances you would have to travel; the ridiculous costs; the time it would take to get anywhere; the paucity of conditions on other planets; and the comparative ease with which automatic systems are much better and more capable of doing what humans do very poorly indeed: namely wait a long time then do something which takes a great deal of computation. Probes don't worry about staying entertained and sane, eating and drinking, and can pilot through the system without human error.

Addendum. Just for fun...

Interstellar Travel anyone???

If there was an earth type planet on Alpha Centauri. AND if you could ignore the increase in mass with velocity, associated with the speed of light. And you had unlimited energy to thrust a spacecraft at 1 g constantly. You could accelerate towards Alpha Centauri, at 1 g, turn around at midpoint, and then slow down at 1 g for the rest of the trip, you would achieve artificial gravity, and reach your destination in around four years. But that would entail burning your thrusters for four years without let up.

21.4 trillion km to mid point; assuming acceleration at 10ms². s=¹/₂at²
gives SQR (4.28e15) seconds. Thats 757 days to mid point; doubled for the deceleration; making 4.15 years.

Obviously this is not possible as you cannot keep thrust constant for four years, without a massive payload to maintain acceleration at 10m per second squared.

And sadly you'd have to reach 654.2 million metres per second at mid point which is in excess of the speed of light by a factor of more than 2.

c= 299,792,458 metres per second, BTW. Did I mention that you mass tends to infinity the closer you get to c?

[Eckhart Aurelius Hughes]

Genetically-modified humans

You mean beings other than humans will colonise Mars! Maybe but with the same provisos I have set forth.

No, that's not what I mean. I mean genetically modified humans; something we might see as early as next year (source).

It's kind of similar to how some humans have had their hormones modified with injections like steroids to become unusually large bodybuilders, except with technological advancement over the next couple hundred years will be much safer, more potent and deal with bigger issues than simply having larger muscles than hormones do now. Things like muscle atrophy in the non-gravity of space could be addressed, for just one example. Better resistance to cancer from radiation is just one more example of many that the powers of genetic modification will likely bring.

More fuel-efficient, cost-efficient travel, namely that using methods other than burning rocket fuel

Such as?

Who knows? Who could have predicted the exact way the developments in technology or in ground-travel would have developed in the past 100 years or past 500 years would have unfolded? If someone 200 years ago could have come up with the blueprint for a 2014 Nissan Altima they would have been rich. But one then just like now would not know which technology would win out or how exactly it would be implemented.

It could be ion engines, black-hole-propelled ships, warp drive, solar sails, teleportation or any other emerging technology or scientist-proposed non-physical-law breaking technology, but in 100 years the method of propulsion used will likely be something we haven't imagined just like 200 years ago our modern technology and electric grid may have been unimaginable, even though the pattern of technological progress and more efficient/faster travel could have been recognized.

Most commentators feel that the age of cheap energy is over. There are many crackpot ideas of using nuclear rockets, with giant springs inside to gather the impact. It is unlikely any human would survive the blast nor would leaving a trail of radioactivity in earth orbit be very nice

That is just one of many possible technologies already being worked on that would lead to more fuel-efficient, cost-efficient travel.

Space elevators

Interesting in terms of the possibility of orbiting colonies round earth as the last Matt Damon film; not significant for Mars

The trip to Mars from Earth is made easier if the trip from Earth to outerspace is made easier. A space elevator could also be built on Mars. If such a thing comes to pass, it is going to be nice for us to be able to travel to Mars and back without ever having to rocketship off or onto a planet;s surface and deal with it's surface gravity and atmosphere as such.

3D printers

????

3D printers for sale - They are devices that print 3-D objects rather than 2-D pictures onto paper. It's an emerging technology. Imagine when it's improved as much as telecommunications has in the past 100 years.

Better spacesuits

Any spacesuit has to be a mobile life support, heat and air. able to carry waste.

Yes, and they will be doing a better and better job at that with less and less material. Which will make the trip to Mars and living on Mars much more feasible as time goes on.

Cyborgs

Whatever that is. Not exactly a human.

Not human? Are Neil Harbisson, Kevin Warwick, Jesse Sullivan, Jens Naumann, Nigel Ackland, Jerry Jalava, Claudia Mitchell not human (source)? The irony here is that the claim that such cyborgs aren't human could not have been met with a list of names 100 years ago but would have been just as false; 100 years proving those technology-deniers wrong. We must take care before we deny what is possible with improved technology.

Human or not, the reality is that having ever more technologically-advanced cyborgs and robots is going to make colonizing Mars easier much like having a well-trained dog makes hunting and living in the woods on Earth easier.

1. Do you believe human beings will ever step foot on Mars like we already have on the Moon? If not, why not? If so, roughly how many humans do you think will have stepped foot on Mars in the next 200 years? In the next 200 years, what do you think will be the longest any one person will have stayed on Mars and why?

I think that a manned mission will probably happen [...]

Okay, agreed. What about the other questions: "roughly how many humans do you think will have stepped foot on Mars in the next 200 years? In the next 200 years, what do you think will be the longest any one person will have stayed on Mars and why?"

2. Do you believe human beings will colonize other planets and/or moons? Why or why not?

The discussion has examined Mars for the reason that Mars is the best prospect due to its proximity and relatively benign climate. 400 mph winds, extremes in temperature of minus 160 C to 20 C. And a daily differential of 80 C makes it gentle compared to say Venus. Other bodies in the Solar system all have too little solar radiation or too small in terms of gravity. Nearer the sun: do you want to discuss the problems of Mercury and Venus? I've asked you to say why we would want to colonise other planets or moons and you have not responded.

Is that a no?

What about Earth-like planets in other solar systems? What are the odds humans would colonize one of them in the next million years?

3. How fast would you estimate our fastest spaceship will be in 100 years? Why?

Never fast enough to reach other worlds and be economic. No one is going to invest in a project they can never know if successful and never know the result, and never reap any reward. Why - matter tends to infinite mass when approaching the speed of light. I don't think we can change the laws of nature. with each fraction towards the speed of light you will need an increasing amour of energy, and more energy to carry the energy. The phrase diminishing returns comes to mined. The nearest star is 4.5 light years away (27, 000,000,000,000 miles). hitting a speck of dirt at near light speeds is catastrophic. any speed you achieve, as to be accelerated to, and then decelerated from. If you think extra-solar flight is even possibility then let's throw some numbers about. But round trips, and benefits for the earth are nil.

You didn't answer the question: "How fast would you estimate our fastest spaceship will be in 100 years?"

4. Roughly how much do you estimate the cost to transport a 10lb payload to Mars will be in 100 years? Why?

More not less than now. The cost of Space has increased not decreased since the 1970s.

Source please that it costs more now than in the 1970s per lb to ship payloads into or around space in a specific, fairly compared way. Note of course we do mean to adjust for inflation when measuring cost. In any case, can you answer the question?

Unless you can imagine and energy source with motive power you aren't going anywhere. Moving things has been achieved with fuel for over 200 years in basically the same way; burning stuff in controlled ways to make thrust.

Incorrect. There are already spaceships that travel via ion thrusters. There are electric cars, and electricity gained from solar or wind sources. That's just the technology now. But a 100 years ago that premise might have stood, but and thus the argument would still have been false, reductio ad absurdum. An argument equally structurally absurd as that argument has been reduced to, a thousand years ago someone could have said that vehicles driven by some combustible source or other seeming magic is unimaginable because for thousands of years all travel has involved more basic mechanics, namely wheels and things attached to slave animals. Technology doesn't follow the pattern of what has always been, hence technological advancement.

5. Once (if ever) we had the technology to transport a human being to Mars and let them walk along its surface in a spacesuit, much like humans who went to the Moon or who now are in space, how much do you think such a trip for a single tourist could auction off for at first?

I already did this one. Several Billion per person, if you took 100 persons. Due to economy of scale.

Agreed.

Yet the astronauts who went to the moon didn't pay their own way. Humans were/are so interested in space accomplishments that even greater money was able to be put together by other means namely government investment from taxpayer dollars and loans (supposedly to be repaid by taxes), and this is one according to you it cost more than it cost now per 10lbs to send someone to the Moon or Mars. If one person would pay billions, imagine how much government, research grants and so on will be putting towards the goal of development.

6. How much do you think a spacesuit that performs at least the same functions as one does now would weigh in 200 years?

Maybe half the weight. I doubt if weight is the issue. They may well be twice the weight but benefit from servo-motive assistance.

Agreed. They will definitely make spacetravel and being on a planet like Mars much easier. That's like having sunglasses and sunscreen makes retiring in Florida easier and more desirable.

No one can live their life in a suit. Think about it!

Maybe, but if we all had to be naked almost all of the time, much of the places on Earth we have colonized would be out of the picture to stay in.

As far as living in a suit (almost) all the time. Such a procedure might be quite useful for someone suffering from severe combined immunodeficiency (bubble boy disease), especially after hundreds of years of exponential technological advancement.

7. Do you think that in thousands of years some humans will have either evolved or been genetically engineered to be more adapt at outer-space life like dealing with lower gravities and increased space radiation?

No. Evolution is guided by the weak dying. It is not aware of a direction, and would not spontaneously produce progeny that was able to adapt to radiation. low pressure or lack of oxygen.

Let's test this idea with an arbitrarily specific hypothetical:

• Let's say a space-station is built in orbit, and as some long-running cruel experiment 1,000 randomly chosen people from Earth's fertile population are forced to live there. Let's say half of them die before having kids, particularly due to the radiatio and muscle atrophy and other dangers of outerspace life, and the other half each have about 2 kids per couple on average in their lifetime. This second generation of 500, all of whose genes are a mixture only the half of those first 1,000 that survived, has the same thing happen. Creating a third generation of 250 and then a fourth generation of 125.

Would this 125 people be more resistant to the challenges of outerspace life than the average person on Earth even if both were treated the same from conception? Is it possible even that if the embryo was taken off the spaceship and implanted on someone on Earth that someone from that 125 that the baby born would actually be much less genetically suited for life on Earth than the average person?

WHilst it might be possible to genetically engineer a new species to cope with low gravity, they would not actually be "human".

What is human?

What if this genetically engineered "new species" was human enough to have sex with? What if a regular human fell in deep love with one of these genetically-engineered creatures? What if that genetically-engineered creature is too adapt to Mars and unfit for Earth to accept living on Earth? What if the human who fell madly in love with it wants to be with it on Mars so bad? What if she is the richest woman on Earth and madly loves this man-made Martian? Well that's just one overly dramatic example of many of how if Mars is colonized by human-like man-made non-human Martians that even that would make human colonies much more feasible. Our manmade genetic things could even build our Mars hotels for us. Maybe it's be a kind of dystopia in which they are our slaves and rich people visit Mars to be pampered by poor genetically-engineered Martians and robots who work hard building human-friendly resorts or biodomes or whatever in which they can serve their masters--insurance companies charged for the expense of the retreat because it is claimed to have health benefits to go to this relaxing resort where one is well-cared for by the Martian slaves. Ah, with so much technology, colonizing Mars becomes as simple as lighting a house, yet from the fog of the past even mere electricity in the home seemed fantastic.

Why anyone would accept the moral problems with condemning a new species to be forever stuck on an alien planet I can't imagine.

I don't know anything of "moral" problems, whatever "moral" means, but that humans would do such disgusting, cruel things is easy to imagine. They enslaved entire so-called 'races' on Earth. The holocaust, the billions of starving children tens-of-thousands of whom die every day from hunger, the millions rotting in prisons, the billions of dollars spent on the military industry, the double nuclear bombing of Japan, the painful animal-testing to refine perfumes and lipsticks, the gladiator games and incredibly expensive colosseums to contain them... the disgusting cruelty of human history is perhaps rivaled only by the incredibleness of its exponential technological advancement. Where once slaves were contained by whip they are now contained by sonar cannons. This is an idea I addressed in my article Philosophy of Technology and Development.

8. If you had to guess yes or no, in 200 years do you think we will have the technology to create personal breathing devices that would allow someone to breath underwater without bringing oxygen from the surface in tanks/tubes presumably by taking oxygen out of the water itself, like artificial gills? I think such a device was portrayed in one of the Star Wars films for reference.

Not relevant,

I think it is relevant. Having the technology to breath indefinitely underwater with a device that might not weigh as little as 10lbs if even more than a couple lbs certainly correlates to our technology to have space flight and to be on Mars in a more economically feasible way.

You can't create a convenient oxygen/nitrogen atmosphere were these substances do not exist. Underwater it might be possible due to the high concentrations of oxygen

Are you saying there is more oxygen in water than on Mars?

but making it small enough to be practical would be difficult.

Many of the technologies and feats (such as cutting the weight of a spacesuit of equal function in half) we have described would be quite difficult in the next few hundred years and impossible by current technology.

Star Wars is a complete fantasy. I do not take my scientific ideas from G Lucas.

Indeed, it's only an illustration of the type of thing I was describing, not evidence that it was possible. Indeed, I'm sure sci-fi writers generally take their ideas from science (namely that leading to emerging technologies) as opposed to vice versa, hence the difference between sci-fi and fantasy.

9. In 200 years, what do you roughly estimate will be the longest consecutive time any one person will have spent in outerspace as in not on Earth but in spaceships or on other moons/planets/etc?

Quite possibly nil. I seriously doubt if any manned space trips will be made after the next 50 years. If any survive the first attempts at a manned Mars Shot we will have learned a lot about the severe psychological problems of a 2 year trip.

This makes no sense as there is already people in space as we speak. Even if you expect them all to be brought home and nobody else to be sent out at some point in the next 200 years, that doesn't answer the question: "In 200 years, what do you roughly estimate will be the longest consecutive time any one person will have spent in outerspace as in not on Earth but in spaceships or on other moons/planets/etc?"

You agree that people will land on walk on Mars; that means it is not nil, ipso facto. You even agree that people would spend billions each for chance to go to Mars; that's not nil amount of time for the longest human to have been off Earth over the next 200 years; it's at least as much time as multi-billion dollar ticket buys.

Cheap energy is over for the foreseeable future.

Cheap energy is relative. Cheap energy to power a car or a home air conditioner on Earth is different than cheaper energy to get off Earth, to move about space or to go to or land on Mars or to power equipment on Mars. It's quite likely the price for one could go up while the other goes down or vice versa. Energy is easy to come by; it beams down on our heads from the Sun so hard we wear white hats to reflect it away. It's the harvesting of it and using it for any given purpose that represents cost. The energy costs that are reflected in the energy CPM (cost per mile) of an ion engine are wholly different than the energy costs of the energy CPM of driving a car on Earth. Taking a space elevator to orbit and then moving from there into an ion engine propelled or mini-black-hole-radiation-propelled or any of countless other possible technologies that may emerge in the near future and then landing at the top of a space elevator on Mars.

More importantly, the question isn't if we will go to Mars in the "foreseeable future" whatever that means. The question is whether we will colonize Mars ever or as you claim never, ever. There simply is insufficient argument to back up the claim that we will never, ever colonize Mars.

Regarding cheap energy, interestingly, the lifestyle we currently have even on Earth can be expected to get much cheaper as the system is made more efficient, without changes in the cost of basic energy production, such as with smart homes with washing machines and dryers that communicate with energy grid to use more energy during surplus and less at other times, or when computers make telecommuting more common than driving a gasoline powered car that still burns fuel even at 5mph in stuffed rush hour traffic. Then again, with the extra money of not having to pay in time or money (because time is money) for the commute to work, people will likely buy more energy for other things like disco lights or ice sculptures or whatever the kids like these days.

The next generation of energy will offer us electrical rather then combustible fuel.

Indeed, we may indeed see a divide between what goes into the production of energy and propulsion. In parallel, it used to take a lot of energy to deliver mail, now email takes much less energy and doesn't seem to involve much horsepower. The limits to space travel and Mars development may be defined not by energy, which can easily be bought in nearly any amount, but in weight and propulsion-efficiency (more commonly but perhaps too narrowly called fuel-efficiency) both in cost of fuel/propulsion-mechanism and weight of the fuel and/or propulsion mechanism. The biggest issue effecting cost of space travel now that will be greatly reduced in the future by ever-improving technology is not the cost of rocket fuel itself but how much the darn fuel weighs and that most of the cost and energy used in travel simply goes to the fuel being brought along. It's not the cost of fuel or energy but rather the weight which plays such a different role in outerspace travel which is why the ways to make space travel more feasible is not so clearly tied to making home energy use on the surface of Earth more cheap.

As computer technology improve (exponentially) as it has been; this will make automatic, AI, and remotely controlled space programmes far more likely,

That in turn makes human colonization even more feasible, much in the same way as stated earlier having a well-trained dog makes hunting and living in the woods much easier. A space tourist or retiree might feel much more comfortable and find the trip much cheaper if slave-like AI machines who were immune to certain dangers come along being able to perform mini-missions like repair damaged biodomes, perform rescue missions to people stranded in the wilderness on a tourist safari on Mars in a broken ground-transport vehicle, or collecting resources such as collecting Oxygen-rich C02 or water. Humans would be more free to enjoy the planet as they so dream while slave machines do the labor and dirty work, giving the humans more bang for the each of the billions of bucks they spent to go there.

whilst humans continue to look inward to virtual experiences.

Yes, this will happen too. With billions of people on the planet, some may never have interest in visiting Alaska while they will go so far as to retire on the strange lands of Hawaii or Costa Rica; for others it is is vice versa; for others it is a little of both or neither. Technology will open up so many options for curious humans. I hope the anti-AI camp isn't too extreme, with their hatred for the unreal. To each his own, just go on your dangerous safaris in the Australian outback and have fun while we sit back and relax at home with our PlayStation 5, right?

Whilst space travel will always be enormously expensive;

I expect it is going to get cheaper and cheaper. Yet we may indeed spend more and more on it just as people might spend more on electricity or gasoline now than they did before but not because it costs more for what it does but rather because as it has become cheaper and provide more results its use has also become more widespread.

robotic exploration will always be safer and cheaper.

Maybe. Would robotic exploration of the moon have been cheaper than sending man there? Would robotic exploration of orbit-distance outerspace be safer and cheaper than putting astronauts in orbit? In some sense yes, but (1) humans can often do more than robots (such as go to Mars and tell about the experience in a beautifully written autobiography that brings people to tears as they read it) and (2) humans like to explore things themselves. For instance, it's much cheaper and safer to buy a factory-produced computer but many people as a hobby enjoy purchasing the parts themselves and building their own computer at home. As a child, I once burned my fingers very bad trying to build a walkman at home, using some kind of parts kit, one that I never did finish. That's just an anecdotal example but one of billions that could be given by different humans of their explorations out of mere curiosity. I'd be embarrassed to say how much I have spent on leaving the safety of my home to take vacations touring foreign lands, ones that I could easily see more of and learn more about at home on the internet or with a 3-D TV. And I am far from the cruise line's top customer.

At the same time exploration of the inner spaces of the mind and imagination through computer technology with sensory interfaces will be increasingly cheaper.

But how without cheap energy?! The human brain is actually quite energy inefficient. The most cost effective thing to do would to just build AI and blow our own brains out, with a gun I mean. Then put those calories towards AI exploration of space. But really, what justification is there for saying that virtual reality will get so much cheaper while space exploration will always be extremely expensive? To the contrary, it seems like there is more room for savings in the bigger than the smaller making a 100,000 mile trip involving a huge spaceship to a colony with a huge biodome or vast terraforming system more efficient than in ever more trying to make the computer chips in your playstation or Google Goggles smaller or tying them in better to the human nervous system. Isn't there more potential to get bigger and farther than smaller and closer. And the bigger the system, the easier it is to alter part of it to be more efficient, right?

Now we consider why anyone would want to live their entire lives and build a family in which their children will live and grow in an alien environment?

Again, the reasons are parallel to why permanent settlements have already been made in Antarctica with humans already having been born in Antarctica, and the reasons why early colonists took the huge danger of leaving Europe to come to America even though more of them died in the process of coming and staying here than will likely die in the first trips to Mars. It's why there are tourist traps and resorts and local residencies on dangerous islands and around volcanos and other places on Earth that would be terrible or impossible to live in with worse technology. It seems to be human nature to boldly go where no man has gone before... and then either mine it to death for resources or colonize it for permanent residency or tourism made up mostly of a mix between crazy explorers, rich tourists/retirees and scientists.

Militaries also seems set on pushing the boundaries of science and ownership for purposes unknown. Build a nuclear bomb? Why not. Build more nuclear bombs than would be needed to blow up the whole world repeatedly? Sure. Invest ridiculous money in telekinesis and mind control science for secret military stuff? Yes. Death laser on Pluto that can't even reach Earth? Sounds like a plan; who knows maybe there is a slight chance we will find a great destructive military use for it later.

Even if we could overcome the problems of Martian life; living in Mars will always be wretched and second rate compared to the home planet wherein we have evolved to survive.

Even if that was true, why would that stop a colony from forming there? The fraction of people that tend to be colonists don't seem to be the people that cling to the comforts of the well-known life. They seem like the kinds of people who would spend billions to poop in plastic bags in a cramped space shuttle.

To the premise, I see no reason to conclude that living on Mars will always be wretched, particularly thanks to the emerging, ever-improving technologies already mentioned and to those unknown that will surely emerge in the future.

Mars will never provide earth with anything it can't get right here.

Yes it will. For instance, it will provide scientific data that cannot be collected on Earth and provide tourists and retirees and explorers a new world to enjoy and explore. That's why 200,000 people applied to one company's offer to have them live the rest of their lives on Mars.

[Hog Rider]

Sorry Scott, but I do not think any of your fantasies need to be addressed here. You only seem to be arguing for the sale of it, and I don't think you really believe what you are typing.

It will never be cheap to go to Mars and never attractive to build a "permanent colony" there. You are not even addressing the point and using a range of specious arguments.

Space travel will never achieve a single self sufficient colony outside earth's orbit.

It's a waste of time countering falsehoods such asself sufficient colony on Antarctica., where none exist.

[Gulnara]

@Hog Rider

It must have seemed equally impossible to put men on the Moon before it actually happened.

Before the Wright Brothers built and flew their first prototype, human flight was just that-- a fantasy.

Then why not to colonize the Moon first? I think those grandeur projects are designed to rip countries of money.

-- Updated Sat Mar 29, 2014 12:28 pm to add the following --

To see if life can be created on Mars, why not send there some seeds, plus some bacteria and tiny animals, to see if any of them will survive?

[Hog Rider]

The Moon shot budget swallowed more of the science money forcing the abandonment of more useful projects. This was all done to beat the Russians, and achieved that but very little else, that could not have been done with less ambitious rockets to orbit as achieved more cheaply and effectively by Europe, and China, subsequently.

During the 1960s the US was playing the prestige game to avoid more pressing and important problems such as civil rights and conscription for Vietnam.

Sadly I was not allowed to post some of the popular reaction to the Moon Landings, as it was in "poetic form." If you want to know what was censored, then please look in to "Whitey's on the Moon", in which Gil Scott Heron expresses his ire at the US which was funding the Money-Pit of the Apollo Program whilst black children in the US were going hungry is poor housing surrounded by rats and roaches.

This small paragraph cannot express what Mr. Heron so beautifully put.