/sci/ - Science & Math

>>10027661
>My question is how much propellant needs to be produced yearly to accomplish this
Eh, its not that much.

>>10027661
>Specifically what is needed to make a sustainable colony.
Well to start with we should shrink a somewhat significant amount of the population down to about 3 inches tall. That way they'll use up vastly fewer resources for the spacecraft, and so it'll be much cheaper to send each person to space. Not to mention that they can still operate automated machinery if we just make a few modifications here and there.

>>10027666
Nice trips. Ever hear the term the devil is in the details? Well it is, exact numbers matter.

>>10027661
Massive investment mostly.

Picture a small colony that has weekly deliveries of electronis and heavy industral machinery. Underground habitats willestablishing a sub-surface mining colony inorder to begin future steps of manufacturing of processed raw materials.

>>10027680
That's a handwave. So how do you achieve these weekly deliveries? Especially with limited launch windows. Inb4 VASIMIR. Also this is the science board not the economics board, so you should elaborate on exactly what and how much you need delivered.

>>10027718
Turn the ISS into a spaceport/ distribution center.

Use aerospike shuttle craft to launch deliveries from ISS to Martian orbit. Then have a station in Martian orbit command the supply drops onto Mars.

With our current technology all these things are possible. The question is how much are we willing to spend. Capitalism finds it hard to invest in a moral/social pursuit over profitability.

The Chinks will colonize the moon sooner or later. Communism throws heavy resources and manpower at problems to be resolved instead of the market.

>>10027738
You haven't a single number supporting your arguments in your post. For what purpose are you using aerospike engines in vacuum?

>>10027661
In proper colonization scenarios regardless of technology/destination, the journey ends with arrival at the location, and you can build everything you need when you're there with what you bring. There won't be a large amount of rocket fuel transported to/later produced on Mars imo. Martian colonies will definitely not be profitable outside of research, so I don't see why return journeys would be a mission requirement. The first colonizers would likely be indoctrinated to expect death on Mars/already expect this as the scenario is very different from going on the ISS.
I'm still going with the idea that the first stable "colony" will be a simple robotic colony regardless.

>>10027790
The profit in Mars isn't in the colony itself, it is firstly in millions of people willing to sell their soul for a ticket off this shithole, secondly it will be in unique Martian exports, imagine the price tags commanded by pretty Martian rocks, richfags will pay 10s of millions to have a spheshul rock to show off to all their richfags friends, and this isn't accounting for other potential exports such as Martian mineral water or shit like homegrown Martian tobacco. Obviously these things will become less valuable over time, but it has always been about getting a large initial investment.

>>10027738
>Wasting extremely expensive delta v to rendevous with a tin can in orbit because?....
>Sending shuttles outside of hohmann transfer orbits, ensuring they take years to arrive because?....

Agree re chinks though, they have the capital and manpower to throw at the problem and they don't give a fuck about politics, human casualties or the environment.

>>10027661
We discovered Antarctica centuries ago. It got breathable air, standard gravity, water, it's much warmer then Mars. You can easily go there with a ship or a plane. We got some science outposts there but no "sustainable colony".
I think it's a safe bet there will be no colony on Mars within our lifetime.

>>10027944
There is no colony there because of the beauracratic mess it is. It is so bad that it is literally easier to ship stuff up our huge gravity well and across millions of kilometers of hard vaccuum onto a hostile and barren desert shithole than it is to try and navigate that clusterfuck of international relations. If it had been free for the taking it would have been colonised decades ago.

>>10027934
Guys we have the new Elon Musk here
He's the genius of business!

>>10027981
m8 look at the stupid shit richfags pay obscene amounts of money for

>>10027952
Funny fairy tale. In reality it's as easy to ship whatever you want to Antarctica as it is to ship it to Japan. But transporting something to space is not only insanely expensive, it's also an bureaucratic nightmare of epic proportions.

>>10027790
Musk's plans call for refueling. Whether or not its profitable is not what I am asking, but the amount of propellant needed may determine whether it is or not.
>>10027944
This is not a thread about antarctica colonization. In fact I'm not a big fan of Musk's Mars colonization plans myself. Really the only way to show his plans are shit arw with hard numbers.

>>10027944
Because you can't extract resources there. The only thing they're getting in situ is water by desalination. And even if you could get around the legal and political bs, it has a tiny fraction of the resources that would be available to a Mars colony.

I have no doubts we'll send people living on Mars sooner or later, however, if a colony will ever be made, it's going to stay in enclosed biodomes for thousands of years. Elon kept mentioning that he wants to terraform Mars, how is he going to do that without a magnetic field and the planet being constantly bombarded by charged particles? What's his plan to restore the planet's magnetic field?

>>10028283
Are you kidding? The largest ressource in antarctica is fresh water. E.g. there are 90% of all fresh water on Earth. You can extract it easily, It's literally everywhere. You just need to heat it up a bit. There is also silver, copper, gold, nickel, platinum, iron ore, chromium, cobalt, molybdenum, zinc, manganese lead, titanium, nickel, and uranium, coal, gas and oil.

Challenges are
-Need for suitable mining technology
-Wealth of minerals easily available in other parts of the world
-Resistance from environmentalists such as Greenpeace and World Wide Fund for Nature
-Antarctica's distance from industrialized areas
Transportation costs
-Extremely dangerous terrain

The only ore on Mars we know of is iron. To make steel we would also need coal and oxygen. This does not exist on Mars.

This planet offers nothing we would ever need. We will go there, plant a flag, leave and never come back. Just what we did on the Moon.

>>10027661
>Once we know this we can get a rough idea of energy requirements.

We already have an idea. It takes roughly a megawatt of power, continuous, to refuel a single BFS during 2 year long Martian synod. This was calculated by people on NSF and reddit long ago, and corroborated by Mueller from SpaceX.

Note that it should be possible to cram multiple megawatts of solar into single BFS. Much more if thin film solar is viable.

>be mars colony
>become self-sustaining
>have only grubs, potatoes, and algae to eat

Spices will be quite sought after I’d imagine

>>10027661
bloogy dudu

>>10027680
>weekly deliveries
I don't know if you'd have weekly launch windows.
Ideally youd want to bootstrap your colony.
First wave are engineers, construction, and administrative guys who begin to excavate the future colony site. Second wave would be the people who would be able to start making the colony self sufficient, after that you start bringing in the people who fill tertiary niches and families.
The problem is seeing if humans can survive and breed indefinitely in Muskcity.

>>10028452
Don’t you mean Muskopolis

>>10028438
>Spices will be quite sought after I’d imagine
Yeah but then you have to deal with CHOAM, the navigators, fremen, and the occasional god emperor.

>>10028454
All the cool kids will live in Cydonia anyways.

>>10028452
The issue with reproducing on mars is that the planet has 1/3 the gravity of earth, so anyone born and raised on mars would be sorta stuck there, unless they trained their body to withstand higher forces of gravity. Musks plan is to send robots to mars who will find a landing site, and autonomously begin creating rocket fuel before the first manned mission even lands.

>>10028468
pregnant women will probably have to live in 1g rotating space stations in LMO. And the kids will probably have to stay there until they turn 20 or so

>>10028283
Extracting resources on Mars for use anywhere except Mars is questionable. There is potentially a case for exporting propellant though.
>>10028373
THIS IS NOT AN ANTARCTICA COLONIZATION THREAD. Yeah, yeah you're making a point about how it'd be easier and that we have no reason to colonize Mars, but that's not what I made this thread for. This thread focuses on the how it could be accomplished if it can be accomplished at all, rather than the why. Also, I'd really like to show with numbers that Musk's Mars plans are full of shit with hard numbers that address 'how' it cannot be done or 'how' impractical it is.
>> coal
You don't need coal to make steel, you can use molten oxide electrolysis:
https://www.technologyreview.com/s/611961/this-mit-spinout-could-finally-clean-up-steel-one-of-the-globes-biggest-climate-polluters/
The process in the above article above was invented to work on the Moon. You can electrolyze molten rock to get ferrosilicon alloy and oxygen. You can further process the ferrosilicon to seperate the iron and silicon. There are other ways to reduce metal oxides than just using coal. Hydrogen reduction is another means of doing so.
>>ore
Ore is rock that contains certaim elements at slightly higher concentrations. Near term it probably makes more sense to use what is available around you through processes like molten oxide electrolysis.
>>10028390
Ok cool, now how much propellant do you actually have to produce? Where are these calculations? What assumptions did they make? Is this the ideal case? CO2 is easy, you can extract that from air, water is difficult because you have to dig for it.

Now I have a hunch that one of the big limiting factors for how fast we can set up a Mars colony will be water. You need hydrogen for propellant, plastics, refining regolith. There are likely a number of processes that will consume hydrogen.

>>10027661
its about 3.5km/s delta-v to get from earth to mars, depending on the transfer.

> how much propellant needs to be produced yearly
depends on how long you want to be on mars

if we assume the mars vehicle will be about 2 space shuttles in weight (200.000 kg) you need to have about 250.000kg of fuel with a specific impulse of 450

this would mean producing 50.000 kg per year for a 5 year mission and 138kg each day. thats about 1.3 barrels of fuel

>>10028438
The spice must flow

we'll actually have to have affirmative action for selection of women colonists, otherwise there'll be like 99 nerdy men to every woman which is not sustainable

>>10028783
queen of the nerds.

>>10028665
I think you'll discover that most anons on this board are just brainlets that have an interest in science and maths. They don't actually have any useful solutions or calculations for you but they do have tons of opinions and conjecture.

>>10028829

>>10028867
>Day_352 of the mars mission
>the last of my underwear has disappeared, i have given up on the search after i found out the first time what happend to them.
>it was around the same time i realized that the air purifiers werent designed to to take away the smell of 99 virgins ejeculating daily, the air is pungent, you can almost taste it.
>i'm however very grateful that thanks to the poor life choices of my fellow crew mates that i can easily overpower them, as i had to do on Day_171 when i used vice captain Cooper, with help of the lack of gravity, as a batering ram to subdue the crew who ganged up on me to force themselfs on me.
>some of them have started a system, not very unlike in prison, where the weaker men of the crew have become no more then sexual relief to the stronger ones.
>since then my example making of breaking random crew members fingers to remind them to stay away from me have become less frequent.

>>10028665
>water is difficult because you have to dig for it.
No reason you'd need to source the water locally. If you've got the ability to set up a mars base, then you've probably got the capability to exploit the asteroid belt as well. Plenty of water and volatiles you can get to.
Even if you wan't to keep your mars colony entirely self sustaining, mars does have polar caps with water ice.

>>10028373
>Are you kidding? The largest ressource in antarctica is fresh water. E.g. there are 90% of all fresh water on Earth. You can extract it easily, It's literally everywhere. You just need to heat it up a bit.
And yet they don't. They use desalination plants.
>There is also silver, copper, gold, nickel, platinum, iron ore, chromium, cobalt, molybdenum, zinc, manganese lead, titanium, nickel, and uranium, coal, gas and oil.
Which is below 2km of ice on average and is still a fraction of what's available on Mars
>The only ore on Mars we know of is iron.
This is wrong. The rovers have identified several. Which makes sense as Mars is roughly similar in overall compositions to Earth, had water and volcanism and so had all the necessary components for ore generation.
>To make steel we would also need coal and oxygen
We need carbon, which is plentiful on Mars, and oxygen which can be extracted easily enough.

>>10028665
>Extracting resources on Mars for use anywhere except Mars is questionable.
Wasn't suggesting we do, just saying that a colony needs to have industry. Whether that's for export to buy what they need or for self sufficiency to make what they need.

>>10027661
>Specifically what is needed to make a sustainable colony

>>10027661
>Specifically what is needed to make a sustainable colony.

Lots of Jello. Really, lots and lots.

For the babbies.

>>10027670
Varley beat you to it -- but noted it was a screwy idea.

>>10027944
Fair point, but on the other hand, the huge potential payoff is just not there when it comes to colonizing Antarctica. (pic related)

However, if you think catastrophic global warming is inevitable, you might want to get in on an Antarctica colony early.

Wouldn't it be easier to colonize the deep part of the oceans first?

>>10028458
>Cydonia
DO NOT FEED THE FLATCATS!

>>10028829

>>10029540
Different set of challenges, anyway -- but either environment is going to kill you if you fuck up.

The REALLY deep parts, the issues with pressure may be harder to deal with than all the issues of living on Mars. But what's the incentive to live there? It is much easier than Mars to get there briefly for research or winning the dicksizing contest among your travelin' friends, not other real reason to be there -- everything down there is also found on or near the surface.

>>10029534
this

Also Mcmurdo is the closest we really have to a city/colony. around 3000 contract workers work there in the summer but only a fraction stay for the dark winter months.

Also power generation in Antarctica is a joke They should honestly get a nuke reactor back up and running, the amount of jetfuel they have to fly and ship in to keep the generators on is absurd.

>>10029799
>the amount of jetfuel they have to fly and ship in to keep the generators on is absurd.
There are other good reasons to keep that laying around.

>>10029543
You mean tribles right?

>>10028454
You misspelled New Uruk.

>>10030253
Trek ripped off Heinlein.

>>10029799
This is not an antarctica thread

>>10028373
You're so fucking stupid its beyond words. the raw value of Helium 3 is 3 billion a ton. The value of having a back up colony for man is incalculable. Please, just shut the fuck up.

Mars is going to be a forge world.

>>10031975
Not him, but that price is because it predominantly comes from nuclear weapon disarmament and maintenance. If the industry could provide enough profit to sustain a colonisation project then it would be economical to build reactors to undercut the price of space-sourced he3.

>>10031975
Helium3 is on the Moon not on Mars. If you want it better go there.

I got a cunnig plan, we colonize Antarctica instead.

>>10032511
well that sure sounds like a retarded idea. No.

>>10032511
Maybe we should not destroy one of the few untouched places on our planet.

>>10032511
>inb4 anon gets lynched by peaceful green nationalists under loud media cheers

>>10032548
Found the NPC.

>>10027661
>My question is how much propellant needs to be produced yearly to accomplish this

For the BFS specifically, 1100 tons of propellant per sinode, per ship. That's the combined mass of the methane fuel and oxygen oxidizer. That gets the BFS back to Earth with 50,000 kilograms of payload. If you have more BFS vehicles you just multiply that mass by the number of ships. A fleet of ten ships per sinode would require 11,000 tons of propellant.

Making methane requires you first make hydrogen via electrolysis of water. Once you have the hydrogen you can use the Sabatier reaction which converts CO2 into a molecule of methane and two water molecules. You then store the methane and send the water to be split in the electrolysis machine. The Sabatier reaction is exothermic, so it requires no energy input. However, you do need to electrolyse substantially more water in order to get enough hydrogen to make all your methane, plus you need to re-split all the water the Sabatier reaction produces in order to get your oxygen. You therefore need a larger energy budget to make methane-oxygen propellant than if you made hydrogen-oxygen propellant, however methane is way easier to store than hydrogen so it's more viable despite being more energy hungry.

>>10028373
>-Extremely dangerous terrain
lol. No. About 50% of Mars is ancient dry seabed with few craters, it's flatter there than most of Earth.
>this wrong about iron smelting
You don't need coal to smelt iron, we don't even use it on Earth. You need a source of carbon for the most common form of iron reduction. This method is most common because carbon is readily available and easy to use on Earth in the form of natural gas. On Mars we'd instead make carbon monoxide from the atmosphere and blow that through the hot ore. It accomplishes the exact same process, reacting the carbon with oxygen preferentially as at high temperatures is dissociates from the iron atoms. The downside is that you need to actually make the carbon monoxide via electrolysis of carbon dioxide. In fact since we'd be forced to use some kind of recycled reducing agent anyway we'd probably use something other than carbon that can me more easily separated form the oxygen but still pulls it off of hot iron. The only thing we'd actually need to make carbon for would be the big electrodes used to melt the ore, as well as to add to the iron to make steel. If the carbon electrodes are sacrificial then it'd kill two birds with one stone.

There's also the fact that nickel is pretty common on Mars due to the number of surface meteor debris, and nickel is actually really easy to refine to 99.99% purity via the Mond process, which strips nickel out of ores in a sulfur catalyst via carbon monoxide by producing nickel carbonyl, which is a gas at 43 degrees C and decomposes into pure nickel and carbon monoxide gas at 230 degrees C. By passing warm gas through a reaction chamber the nickel carbonyl is produced and transported into a decomposition chamber where it deposits onto hot surfaces (usually nickel pellets kept in constant motion to prevent them sticking), after which the carbon monoxide is recycled back into the reaction chamber.

>>10032862
Finally some numbers!
>>10032882
>> flatter than most of earth
And it's still extremely dangerous because there's no breathable air or repair stations, and calling a tow truck is a lot more difficult. We're probably not going to see overland martian ore transportation for some time

>>10027790
>The first colonizers would likely be indoctrinated to expect death on Mars/already expect this as the scenario is very different from going on the ISS.
if you're going to Mars to colonize the implication is that it's a one way ticket. You'd probably end up with capsules that are designed to be cannibalized for the fledgling colony since your available resources are going to be pretty slim until you've got the ability to exploit and manufacture native resources. Everything you send there is going to need to be as multipurpose as possible. From equipment and materiel to your first wave colonists.

>>10031975
Helium 3 is actually worthless because we don't have the technology to use it. If you are a research lab you buy several thousand dollars worth and use it for experiments, so if someone hypothetically delivered a kilogram of helium 3 to earth it'd immediately drop in value by a few hundred thousand percent as all the research labs aroudn the world bought what they wanted and stopped buying more.

Helium 3 fusion is harder by far than D-T fusion, which is what we're struggling with right now. The attraction of fusion power is in any case the ABUNDANCE of deuterium in Earth's water, not the actual amount of power generated which is on par with a typical nuclear reactor or gas power plant. Fusion technology would be worthless to develop if the fuel cost trillions of dollars a year, which would be the case for a helium 3 reactor.

This is all before we consider the sheer cost of producing any Helium 3 on the Moon. You'd be looking at parts per billion concentration in the best case, meaning for a single kilogram of product you'd need to process a million tons of Moon rock, assuming zero waste or other losses. Processing the rock would involve crushing it into an extremely fine powder to release the trapped helium, which would require massive amounts of energy and time and result in huge amounts of wear and tear in any machine doing the work.

To provide all of Earth's energy for a single year you'd need around 4000 tons of helium 3. That would require the intensive processing of 4 trillion tons of Lunar regolith. That's about 400x as much material compared to the largest combined global coal production in a single year, ever. What's worse, while coal is a soft mineral and is merely being dug up and burned, Lunar regolith is a very hard mixture of various oxides of aluminum and titanium, and requires extremely fine crushing.

Lunar helium 3 mining will literally NEVER EVER be profitable.

>>10033282
>> Processing the rock would involve crushing it into an extremely fine powder to release the trapped helium
No, this is absolutely not how you mine helium 3. You mine helium 3 by digging up the already powdered regolith on the surface and heating it to remove the helium 3 adsorped on the surface of regolith particles.
>>which would require massive amounts of energy
heating up regolith still requires lots of energy, digging it up still requires a lot of time. You need something like 2253 gigajoules of energy invested to produce one kilo of helium-3. Surprisingly the energy return on investment is still positive because the conversion factor between mass and energy is still quite large:
https://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi.ntrs.nasa.gov/19890005477.pdf
But it just doesn't make any sense to mine the moon for it, for a host of other reasons:
http://www.projectrho.com/public_html/rocket/macguffinite.php#id--MacGuffinite--Helium-3

>>10033282
>Helium 3 is actually worthless because we don't have the technology to use it. If you are a research lab you buy several thousand dollars worth and use it for experiments, so if someone hypothetically delivered a kilogram of helium 3 to earth it'd immediately drop in value by a few hundred thousand percent as all the research labs aroudn the world bought what they wanted and stopped buying more.
I agree that the market can't support the sort of saturation required to fund an offworld mining operation but you're exaggerating the numbers. Peak US consumption was 8kg/yr (10's of thousands of L) when the price was about $800-900k per kg. The price spiked to $17.5m/kg and demand dropped to less than a tenth of that as the consumers were priced out of the market. 1kg would drive the price down but not nearly as much as 100,000% and it would open new demand. However you can't fund a mining operation on even the best price of $17.5m and you are going to saturate the current market before you earn enough.

>>10033335
jeez I forgot about Winchell Chung and his site. Put him up on Dear Moon and see what he thinks up with that experience.

>>10033427
>the market can't support the sort of saturation required to fund an offworld mining operation
Fucking this. Though the scarcity of rare earth metals might drive it regardless of the impact to the rest of the markets, and you can still find ways to add cost, which means you can sell it at cost plus. It still needs to be refined and turned into something you can use.

>>10027738
oh no you don't know what you're talking about do you?

>>10027661
Colonizing anything beyond our moon is brainlet mode. Until we learn how to mine near earth asteroids and get a base on the moon, we don't have adequate experience to support an entire goddamned colony.

>>10032548
>destroy the truest desert on earth

you guys truly are fucking retarded. This could be the dumbest bunch of fuckers Ive seen on 4chinz in 9 years.

THERE IS NOTHING THERE
THERE IS NO MAGNETIC FIELD
THERE IS NO USABLE ATMOSPHERE
EVERYTIME THE SUN FARTS IT BLOWS IT AWAY AND IRRADIATES THE SURFACE
WE ARE NEVER COLONIZING MARS
BECAUSE THERE IS NO REASON BESIDES HUR DUR EARTH DESTROYED
4 PEOPLE ON LIFE SUPPORT ON MARS DOES NOT CONSTITUTE SAVING THE HUMAN RACE
YOU ARE FUCKING RETARDED

ITS NO WONDER DUMBFUCKS LIKE YOU HAVE GIVEN YOUR FAGGOT GOD ELON MUSK (WHO HAS NEVER MADE A PROFIT) 10 BILLION TAX PAYER FREEBUX TO YANK YOUR CHAIN YOU FUCKING WANKERS
CEASE THIS CIRCLE JERK FAGGOTRY AT ONCE

>>10033928
there’s a reason spacex’s twitter background is of a terraformed mars timeline.

These things will take hundreds of thousands of years. Every journey begins with a single step

>>10033928
>>EVERYTIME THE SUN FARTS IT BLOWS IT AWAY AND IRRADIATES THE SURFACE
Then what you do is have your colonist hide in a 'storm shelter,' a small highly shielded bunker. Or build the habitat walls thick enough to block the radiation(we don't need windows where we are going), or live underground.

>>10034050
>Every journey begins with a single step
This - is step one!

>>10034050
Ah yes we have photoshopped a scifi picture of a mars colony. Its all figured out! Send money goy!

I wish I could load up a rocket full of you dumbfucks and crash it into mars.

>>10034407
they are working on actual hardware right now retard

not sure about a colony but a SpaceX Mars base is a realistic scenario, I mean just look at the countless billions spend on SLS and Orion despite being a total trainwreck on a technical level, if only a fraction of that funds goes to SpaceX with actual competent engineers in charge, they will achieve great things

>>10034407
you're a contrarian piece of shit.

>>10034417
>>10034422
Be mad that colonizing/terraforming mars is beyond a pipe dream you fuckwits

>>10034407
>>10033928
SEETHING

>>10028283
>it has a tiny fraction of the resources that would be available to a Mars colony.
it will take several generations of constant colonization before you can get anything at the surface of mars, in situ mined or imported for even 1/100000 the cost it would take to go to antarctica.

Imagine you want 1 kg of gold on antarctica, thats the price of gold+the price of transport.

On mars? the same the price of gold+ the price of transport, which is about 100.000 more expensive, dont wnat to transport? want to mine it in situ? ok, its about a million times more expensive.

>>10028438
if you have a self sustaining mars colony you yes or yes have a gigantic ultra organized industrial base for which it would be trivial to provide you with anything that you need in relatively small amounts, like spice

>>10034097
>Goes to Mars because Earth might get irradiated soon
>Still has to build radiation bunkers

>"(BFR ), his Raptor, all that is science fiction, let's say it.
>"I do not believe it too much because Nasa has already invested billions of dollars on a launcher called the Space Launch System, the SLS . And Nasa has no interest in shooting itself in the foot by financing the BFR "

The words of an actual aerospace expert from France. Meanwhile fanboys masturbate all over these threads and few generously artistic images. Hilarious.

>>10034407
>Pretends to be /pol/
>Doesn't support manifest destiny or the faustian spirit

Suggest you report to the gas chamber at the earliest opportunity.

>>10035303
Fucking this.

>>10035225
fuck! theyre onto us!
quick, gather all my underpaid engineering graduates. its time to redesign the BFR again!

>>10035225
>Ariane
>Aerospace expert

pick one and only one

>>10028438
>implying you pull a silkworm and stuff some oregano seeds in your spacesuit before blastoff
Mars could probably grow its own desu.

>>10035974

Yeah, and each new shipment of stuff there could contain a whole new set of plants.

Its just going to start as a research base and then let's see what happens. I don't think we will jump into colonizing Mars, more like step by step expanding a base till it becomes self sufficient after many expansion projects, if living there for an extended period of time is actually possible that is.

It may serve as a hub for mining operations in the asteroid belt, and for transit to and from Earth to Jupiter if we ever get to there as well.

We should totally build a base on the moon first but we can still send a manned mission to Mars. We should look for life on Mars and Europa while we build on the moon and in orbit.

Will it be possible to resupply a Mars-bound spacecraft while it's in flight ?

>>10036049
why not? you'd just have to match it's velocity right? it would only be a problem if they built something in to the ship so that you cant refuel while the rocket is in use.

>>10036049
Theoretically yes, practically, without far superior engine technology, no.

>>10035225
>NASA
>France
You're as full of shit as Musk is.

>>10028452
>>10028483
you don't need to go into orbit
you can put the habitat on an angle and spin it to get 1g while on a planet/moon
the gravity of the body just determines the speed and angle

why are there so many anti-progress NEVER EVER NEVER EVER people
holy nigger dick on rollerskates, have they never at any point in their lives thought of creating solutions to a problem?
have they never thought of trying to achieve anything with their lives?

>>10037141
have you ever thought that maybe colonizing mars is a dumb fucking idea? Im not anti progress, I'm anti retardation. And this thread is nothing but retardation for the sake of masturbation. We will go there, plant a flag, maybe die there, and never fucking return, because there is nothing there, and there is no reason other than exploration, just like the moon. INB4 BUT MAN YOU COULD MINE SO MUCH IRON ON MARS. idiots fuck. saged.

>>10037276
Mars colonization isn't half as stupid as a good chunk of the shit we do on a daily basis without even thinking about it. There's far worse investments of time, energy, and manpower.

>>10034050
"Terra"-forming Mars is not possible. The absolute very best case scenario is that the equator of Mars might look like northern Siberia. And that is after MILLENIAS of years and GAZILLIONS of dollars invested in it.

You could probably build a moon-sized space station with artificial gravity and a capacity for 1 billion people in that time frame and that money investment.

>>10032862
>11000 tons
so that's like 5000 tons of water right or two olympic swimming pools? How long is a synod? Of course does it actually make sense for SpaceX to send BFS's back home?

>>10037276
Gas yourself anti human, I hope they don't let you off this planet when all the sane people gtfo.

>>10037347
Someone has run the maths and it works to around a constant MW of production per BFR over a 2 year synod, very achieveable with new thin film solar panels they are producing, however the problem with solar is dust storms, you can bring extra solar to compensate for lost production during a storm, but they can go for months at a time, meanwhile the colony is likely going to be burning that stored methane to power life support. It's all doable, it's just a question of how thin and light solar film can be made along with how much over provisioning needs to be done.

>>10037384
That's only for synthesizing. You will have to produce and transport all the water and carbon so that you can synthesize something. 1MW will not be even close to what you need for the whole process. How much you would need is hard to estimate, it depends on what kind of technology we end up using to produce the raw materials, how large of deposits we find, how far away they are, how hard to exploit, etc. But one thing is sure, 1MW isnt even close to what you will actually need.

Also note that even 1MW of electricity is 100.000 square metres of solar panels on mars due to lower efficiency.

>>10037141
There has always been those who don't want to see progress and are only able to believe what they perceive as the truth. Then there are those who see too much and jump on any bandwagon. We need both desu, 10 bandwagoners to fail and one to succeed and naysayers to keep the most retarded ideas from happening.

>>10037384
>>Someone has run the maths and it works to around a constant MW
where's the math? I really want to see it. So here's the deal, I want to write a story where we have Elon's little Mars town and one day Earth becomes completely silent in the radio spectrum along with some other BFS's in transit. I'm wondering if our colonists can make it at all on Mars. I honestly don't think they can. So for this I'd like to have some idea of what their industrial base is. How much stuff has to be locally made if Elon's mars town is just a tourist destination for rich people and a way to sell 'office space on Mars' to NASA and other countries. Just how far away from self sustainability are they? So they're eventually going to lose power unless they have way to make more. I was thinking they'd have a small megapower nuclear reactor, because I can make it last only 12 years due to the fuel cycle. I can also make it very hard for them to refuel said reactor because it could be designed to be proliferation resistant or the mechanical parts end up failing after it's operational period. The theme I really want is that a lot the stuff shipped from earth ends up being 'disposable' and this causes a lot of problems. Like the construction equipment being made from carbon fiber turning out to be irreparable, 3d printers failing cause some ultra-high tech part breaks. So it's reasonable to assume they won't have much capability to make their own electronics, because electronics are low mass and will have been shipped from Earth. But will they have metals or plastics production and how much will they have?

>>10037407
Carbon you get from the air through compression/refrigeration. This cost can be easily estimated. Water you have to get from the soil. This cost is harder to estimate because we don't understand granular mechanics all that well. However, we do know devices that process granular materials are not very reliable.

There are millions of people of color living in poverty and you priviledged white boys are fantasizing about colonizing some useless rock in space. How about you put your efforts into bettering earth. Jesus fuck this thread is dumb

>>10037555
Damn you're right. Overpopulation is a huge problem right now and that needs to be fixed in order for Earth to be sustainable so we can focus on space. To do that we need to figure out a good way to kill couple billion subhumans while gaining something from it. Any help?

>>10035225
>Nasa
Is irrelevant. Almost as much as Ariane.

>they are working on actual hardware right now retard

>>10033928
>Hurr durr I'm gonna say things I guess no one knows despite having been discussed many times

>>10037563
Nerve gas or cut off aid and shipments of maintenance materials for industrial society. Nukes too risky, genetically targeted plagues likely to fail or cause unintended consequences.

>>10038202
Yeah you don't have to do anything, the solution is literally, do nothing and watch as they tear themselves to shreds and restabilise at hunter gatherer levels of population.

I have a dream of going to mars and help build up colonies, possibly die on the planet.
I'm 26 years old, is that too old for when the move will happen?

>>10037555
>millions of people of color living
>put your efforts into bettering earth

careful what you wish for

>>10038273
They are going to want older people, but not too old, initially to keep the bad rap from the increased cancer risk on the down low. Beyond that it will be a case of whether you have a useful skillset and how much cash you can stump up. I can't stress the skillset thing enough, they won't be taking fat fucks who can pay a fortune because they need people who will work on Mars. This means you need to be a plumber, electrician, builder, welder, horticulturalist, etc... all at once, they don't want single skilled cunts because everyone needs to be able to do everything. If you can prove you are useful in a tangible way and can stump up the cash, congratulations you are on the shortlist and if you have the skills listed you have just beaten 99%+ of potential candidates.

Learn lots of useful skills and keep a full record of projects involving those skills, make/inherit cash and if BFR flies you will stand a serious chance of getting there before you die.

>>10037384
Dust storms do not obscure 100% of sunlight. If the base has megawatts worth of it they will have plenty for life support and everything. Just not fuel production.

>>10037487
>https://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=39785.0

>>10027661
>Mars Colonization
>>>/lit/

>>10037487
>>10038375
Also this. Shorter but interesting.
>https://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=45477.0

If kids are born on mars will they just not have to stay there forever? Is that the only problem with a 1 third earth gravity fetus? Just c section that martian baby the fuck out and make sure they dont go back to earth gravity

>>10038375
>>10038380
>Reading those threads
>Damn near all this equipment is ready to go off the fucking shelf
>Realising we just need a transport system

Holy shit it really is going to happen for real.

>>10027661
We need a white ethnostate

Martian kids be suckin on that mars milk like....

>>10038402
It is shocking how much options off the shelf components offer as opposed to overly expensive customized mass starved equipment for one off missions on icbm sized rockets. Size and refueling is the key and if they get the latter right Mars and maybe be even Jupiter won't be that far off.

This thread is also interesting as it considers underperformance of the BFR and what it entails, though I distinctly remember reading posts in other threads on the same topic. Can't find them though.
>https://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=45000.0

Essentially low isp engines, higher dry mass and so on, don't really hit the overall capabilities that hard as long as the basics of it are executed right - refueling and rapid reuse.

>>10037555
Lolol you complete re-tred most of the engineers and great minds that are launching people into space are of colour.
The white faced fucks are just the ones that are more publicized.
Choke on a cave dick and diet, tubs.

>>10037555

>>10038402
NSF technovisioning is usually top-notch.

>>10038427
.Lolol you complete re-tred most of the engineers and great minds that are launching people into space are of colour.
No they aren't shitskin coper, most of the engineers doing anything significant are white, as always. Musk doesn't hire chinks and niggers for obvious reasons. Mueller, Koenigsmann, Thornburg, Bucknell etc. all white.

Has anyone done a good job mapping out a feasible plan for harvesting raw materials and colonizing the solar system? Assuming the limiting factor is bringing stuff from earth to space. I know that there’s ample supplies of hydrocarbons and deuterium on titan and water on the moon. I’m wondering what the logical steps would be.

>>10039714
the thing is, there really isn't anything in the solar system that we don't have plenty of on earth. What does matter is processing.

>>10039678
if must sends whites to mars, he'll get sued for discrimination
anything above 0% white will be called racism

>>10039741
accessibility
Earth may have a lot of platinum group metals, but that doesn't help much when the supermajority of those are locked in the mantle and core of the planet
an asteroid however has absolute gigafucktons that makes every mine on earth look like a joke, and would be piss easy to extract since gravity is non-existent

>>10039759
let me clarify - it will never be profitable to bring raw materials back to Earth. it will be profitable to build things in space, with materials from space. Thus Bezos's vision.

>>10039768
that's not entirely certain, there may be particular resources that are in really high demand on earth, like lithium, or resources a nation can't get their hands on due to political fuckery, like china refusing to sell a particular nation rare earths
these could make it worth while to send some of the more valuable ones home

>>10037311
So you’re admitting global warming is fake?

>>10037563
Raced and breadpilled.

10039815

>>10037407
>100,000 m^2 of solar panels for 1MW
What? The loss is about 55% compared to Earth due to distance from the Sun, but Mars also doesn't lose significant amounts of ground level insolation due to its atmosphere.
But even if you used the 45% top-of-the-atmosphere insolation value, your number is way too high. For reference, the 10MW Bavaria Solar Park is more than a decade old, uses PV panels, and has a panel area of only ~75,000 square metres.

>>10040864
>Mars also doesn't lose significant amounts of ground level insolation due to its atmosphere.
Mars is also colder. Solar cells lose ~1/3 of their efficiency between -100C and +40C. The temperature difference isn't that much between Earth and Mars, but it is still significant.

>>10039815
No, the issue is that you would need Mars' average temp by almost 100 degrees, which is borderline impossible with greenhouse gases alone, even if you assume some sci-fi import from asteroids.

>>10041022
Terraforming with oceans forests, typhoons, mosquito swarms, influenza, and all other terra things is pure bullshit.
Terraformed mars is one that has atmospheric pressure sufficient to maintain liquid water and thus not require full pressure suits.

The former aside from being pure bullshit and purely retarded is largely impossible.
The latter is somewhat more achievable with some dedication.

>>10041059
>Spend millenias to create a planet that is still barely habitable

I pass.

>>10027661
So here's the thing a lot of people seem to not consider; there might be hydrocarbons on mars, i.e oil/petroleum. If there is and we can get to it and refine it on the surface of mars refueling costs would be basically nil. AND it would certainly help in establishing a self-sustaining surface colony.

>>10041022
So you admit global warming is fake?

>>10041022
By about 70C, which is absolutely possible with greenhouse gasses as they are the primary source of temperature disparity between the two planets' surfaces

>>10043802
there is the issue that unless we dome over the entire planet, we're gonna need a lot more atmospheric volume due to mars' lower gravity making it reach out further above the planet

>>10043821
Only ~28% the surface area though.

>>10027661
what exactly are they using as propellant? I imagine that it would not go terribly well to try drilling for oil on mars.

>>10043906
>oil
They'll drill for methane clathrate which is the martian oil essentially.

>>10033928

>>10034451
>>10037141
>>10037276

>>10028665
"Now I have a hunch that one of the big limiting factors for how fast we can set up a Mars colony will be water"
if I remenber correctly the martian ice cap have water ice under the dry ice.

>>10043906
>Rover discovers oil on Mars
>MARTIAN TERRORISTS SUSPECTED OF PRODUCING WMDS
>US MILITARY ON ROUTE
>HOO RAH

>>10045163
>tfw orbital bombardment

>>10027661
>Specifically what is needed to make a sustainable colony.

A functioning skeleton.

>>10027738
>The Chinks will colonize the moon sooner or later. Communism throws heavy resources and manpower at problems to be resolved instead of the market.

I really hope that never happens, because if the Chinese get into space and get a foothold, EVERYONE IS FUCKED.

>>10029534
>Fair point

No, that isn't a fair point in the slightest. It is illogical to make such a statement.

>>10045295
WE KEEP TELLING YOU
CENTRIFUGE HABS
I LIKE JELLO BABBY AS MUCH AS ANYONE, BUT AT LEAST TRY TO PAY ATTENTION

it is possible to use Martian dirt to grow stuff?

>>10046334
once treated, yes
raw martian soil is toxic

>>10046320
He is a troll, the problem with centrifuge habs is that they are going to end up being insanely huge, complicated and expensive compared to just digging a hole and covering it or sealing a lava tube or some shit. Like yeah it's doable but you need a pretty serious native industry unless you feel like spending 5000 bajillion dollars flying it on rockets.

Cheap option is you sit in a tiny pod on a spindle arrangement at like 1.5g for a few hours a day and rest of day in Martian g, doesn't sound fun. This is all just speculation until we have more data on different gravities, it could be that the musketeers arrive on Mars and are all dead in 7 years or it could be they live an extra 20 years, we just don't fucking know.

>>10046334
Yeah with treatment but it's kind of a waste of time since literally everything will be grown hydro or aeroponically in cheap, lightweight tubes.

>>10046356
the size and cost would be a pain, but considering it would prevent any risk of jello babies, the costs would be worth it
we could math out precisely how big it would need to be, and what angle it will need to be at to make mars gravity 1g
does anyone have the formula?

>>10046356
Just do your daily workout in hypergravity desu

>>10046359
>>10046349
Perchlorates aren't that hard to get out and are pretty useful resources themselves. Colonists might end up with stocks of clean regolith as a side product rather than a primary goal.
Though yeah, hydro/aqua/aero ponics setups have a lot of advantages and might end up being preferred even with surplus clean soil available.

>>10037276
>have you ever thought that maybe colonizing mars is a dumb fucking idea?
no, being nomadic has been fruitful to the survival of hominids for hundreds of thousands of years.

I think the first colonists should be Latin American. They have a great community vibe and the food would be great.

>>10027661

>>10046320
centrifuge habs dont work when there is gravity you dumb fuck.

>>10046636
>Centrifuges don't work in gravity
Carnies, medical scientists, dairy farmers and bunch of other people are all in for a shock then.

>>10046636
>take hab
>put it at an angle
educate yourself, brainlet

What is namefigging?
Also what is brainlet desu

>>10047376
>have different gravity at the edges than the middle

>>10047561
>not making the floor flat and level
failing that, the difference would be so small it wouldn't be noticeable unless you were specifically looking for it

>>10047561
Not that anon, but just deal with it, and if you can't, increase the radius until the difference is small enough that you can.

>>10047571
>centrifugal gravity on a planet
>make the floor flat and level
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5JNH3KmYHck

Anyway, because you're on an angle, you're increasing the radius while maintaining the same rpm when you move toward the edge. That means you're increasing the centrifugal force. If it's "flat" (an inverted, truncated cone), then not only the strength, but also the angle of total apparent gravity will change relative to the floor. If it's the correct bowl shape, then the angle of apparent gravity will stay square to the floor, but the strength of gravity will still differ.

As with the issue of coriolis force, the solution is scaling (larger radius, narrower strip) until the effect is somewhere between tolerable and imperceptible. On Mars, a suitable solution would be a high-speed train track on a circular banked curve, either on the surface (in which case the train would need a thick ceiling to block radiation, but the sides would be taken care of because it's effectively in a valley, with dirt blocking line-of-sight to space) or in a tunnel.

>>10047695
a train wouldn't really be viable, cause how the fuck are you supposed to get on and off the thing without having to slow down constantly
what design would let you hop on and off safely?
ladders to the middle where someone can just step off?

Rotational craft in orbit to simulate gravity and controlling telepresence robots on the surface for the first year to mine, build, etc.
Build a whole base from orbit with robots and let the people adapt to mars gravity. Never return to earth

>>10047705
The caboose can detach and steer downslope on tires as it slows down, then accelerate to catch the train from behind again. In an emergency, you could get off just with a sled that has a low center of gravity, and skid to a stop. You just need a reasonably smooth road surface.

You are a fuckin retred. A sled? Go cuck santa you reichdeer putin fuck

>>10046612
>They have a great community vibe and the food would be great.
I'm perfectly fine with Little Havana in space, you're going to need a media noche eventually.

>>10047779
A sled is a retarded idea
Obviously you're going to want to use a surfboard

>>10046612
>latin america
fucking hell, we don't need space cartels

I say fuck humans, earth life is what we need to preserve.
So many extremophiles that we can spread in the system.
Europa, Enceladus, titan, ganymede, callisto, Triton, mars, ceres etc.
Maybe even floating bacteria in venus atmosphere or in subsurface warm pools on Io.
Lets move some life off earth incase something happens here and it can evolve on its own. Creating its own ecosystems

>>10048300
why not both, my estrogen infused friend?
colonization would do precisely this anyhow

>>10048300
>t. Extremophile

Seriously though the only planets you would have luck on are Europa, Titan, Mars and possibly Io. Good luck getting them to anything other than die on all those other barren rocks.

>>10047705
Use a smaller vehicle to match speeds? Or just bring the thing to a stop when its not in use. We have no idea how often people need to be centrifuged to stay healthy, they might not even need to at all.

>>10048989
I think that .38g is going to be little too small for long term viability. I am in the camp that our bodies are extremely adapted over our entire evolutionary cycle from day one to function at 1g, I really don't think that requirement is going to be going away. Maybe you could get away with like 0.9-1.1, but 0.38? Man that's not a lot. We really need further experiments done though because really no one knows jack shit other than 0g bad 1g good.

>>10049093
>I think that .38g is going to be little too small for long term viability.
>We really need further experiments done though because really no one knows jack shit other than 0g bad 1g good.
Exactly. You literally have no basis for that besides your gut feeling and neither do I. At best we can say "they won't need a centrifuge literally all the time" because humans survived Apollo and the ISS but even then low gravity might cause different or worse health problems than micro-g.
Its farcical that even with the constant "Mars no Moon no Asteroids no Mars again no..." flipflopping that NASA is forced to go through that one of THE MOST IMPORTANT human considerations to literally every option still hasn't be adequately investigated. I'm still pissed that CAM was cancelled when it was half built.

Elon musk is going to get a bunch of crowdfunding to build a special luxury retreat on mars so he and his billionaire buddies and select eccentric bohemian artist pets can laugh at us while we drown in seawater and choke to death on smog.

>>10049137
They will sure be laughing sitting in their tiny habitats drinking their own piss and hoping the electricity doesnt go out or they are dead.

Would you rather live on Mars or in Los Angeles?

>>10049269
Mars
LA might look nice, but the population is cancer incarnate

>>10048300
Anyone who suggests that will be lynched by the greens with the help of scientists.
I have my doubts human landings on anything beyond the moon (even that is arguable) will ever happen precisely because of contamination hysteria.

>>10049518
>I have my doubts human landings on anything beyond the moon (even that is arguable) will ever happen precisely because of contamination hysteria.

There is no such hysteria and never will be. Intentionally contaminating the universe is one thing, but nobody notable gives a damn if some microbes end up on Mars if it means humanity will land there.

>>10049273
Brit here. I keep hearing bad things about LA from Americans. Looks so nice though

>>10049550
Lots of people on this site are from flyovers and have never been to places like LA or NYC - disregard them.

>>10046356
>Cheap option is you sit in a tiny pod on a spindle arrangement at like 1.5g for a few hours a day
What about a swimming pool? Its a full body work out in an environment where you've got resistance in every direction.
Just have a couple hours of aquatic exercise per day.
You're going to need to dig out cisterns for your water supply anyway.
Seems like a lot fewer engineering failpoints than a whole city on a centrifuge or even smaller personal centrifuges.

>>10047705
I think it's a dumb idea personally but your embarkation platform could be a series of smaller concentric rings, each one going a little faster than the one inside of it. Since its an incremental increase in speed for every ring you'd just need to watch your step at every transition until you get to a platform thats going close to the speed of the rest of the habitat.
When you want to get off, just have a slide you hop into.

>>10049567
>coastie pretending they're superior again
I hate reruns, but what else could be expected from parasites

>>10049787
that sounds really unsafe
these things will need to house children, and possibly the infirm, so quick hopping is probably not viable

>>10048702
Because that will take waaaaay to fuckin long.
This could be done all on the cheap just using probes. And could be done in the next twenty years.
There is no way humans will set foot on the moons of Jupiter in the next twenty years. Anything longer than that will take too long and humans will be royally fucked at that point.
As humans we wonder if there is other life out there or if we are the only ones. Regardless of which one we should still realise we have the god like powers to start life on other worlds.
Human life should not be in the plan for spreading until life itself is spread.
You perfectly tanned shitbird

>>10050275
>there's no way humans will do [X]
just fucking watch me, fuckboy
no fucking shit things take time, that's why you start early so you can get it done faster

>>10049776
Resistance training is not a substitute for gravity, it helps yes but is not a permanent solution.

>>10037555
I've posted it in this thread already, but I'll expound.

Mars will not be colonized in the way people think. Mars will be a forge world where we migrate all the high pollution industrial processes. Who gives a shit about radioactive waste on Mars? Who gives a shit about pools of toxic sludge? Nobody, because that place is already dead. We can go there, crash REE asteroids into it with zero fucks given, have dirty as fuck nuclear power plants that beam back energy via laser/microwave. The works.

Meanwhile, what this means back on Earth is that we can optimize the planet for agriculture and habitation. Turn our home planet into the Eden it was meant to be. Terraform Mars? No! We will terraform Earth.

>>10050304
I'm sure everyone will welcome the idea to destroy a pristine world with industrial pollution.

>>10050312
>pristine world
its a dead rock. there is nothing to destroy.

I dont think mars is a good choice for fuckin up. I do think smaller moons or roids should be made as dirty power plants , weapons testing, biological testing.
Mars isnt as dead desu as you think.
Also i think places like pluto, sedna, ceres would be a good place for max security prison.
Let the low gravity sowly destory muscle and bone so even if escape or end of tme served happened, they could never return to earth. Just life on low grav worlds

>>10050312
>pristine world
>a lifeless dead rock with shitty toxic dust
dank bait

>>10050339
>let prisoners whom are not on death row wither away irreversibly
that's a human rights violation, breaks prisoner treatment laws, and definitely gets you a paddling

>>10050304
Transporting goods manufactured on Mars back to Earth is prohibitively expensive for the forseeable future.. Industrial processes will be moved into Earth orbit, not fucking Mars.

>Terraforming Earth while billions of low IQ savages inhabit large portions of it

lmao

>>10050372
Good point. Only make death row inmates have this but ththeththey dont get exicuted at the end. They serve time and are banashed from earth to low grav worlds

>>10050389
what the fuck did the low grav lads do to deserve that?
they just want to mine and farm in peace, they don't need bix nood in space

>>10050388
there are several processes that are dangerous enough and/or have difficult to acquire input materials that would yield an ROI from Mars. Rare earth elements are the most salient because mining them absolutely fucks shit up. Most of the low impact back end processes can remain on earth, but front end refinement should be done off-world. You aren't going to be bringing asteroids into orbit around earth, thats asking for a disaster to happen, and dismantling asteroids in situ is going to be far more challenging than just crashing them into the nearest stable celestial body and scooping up the insides like a pinata. Mars is right next to the asteroid belt and is large enough that smashing things into it won't destabilize its orbit.

>>10050388
geoengineering will take a long time, the civilized nations are going to be the first ones to do it anyhow
perhaps africa might get their shit together in time to join the party, they have been making very good progress as of late.

>>10050264
How many of those people will need to get on and off the colony?
Doesn't necessarily have to be something you walk on either. Use golf carts and you wont have to worry about anyone slipping.

>>10050622
Dude i near died reading this.
Yeah spinning cities are for autists.
Makes sense to just some how adapt people to be born and develop in those gravity conditions or let have them in orbiting colonies that rotate to simulate earth gravity while mars infrastructure is built by telepresence bots on the surface and gene tech catches up to let people adapt to mars gravity.
And dearhrow dudes on phobos to slowly become weak boned losers :)

>>10046320
>CENTRIFUGE HABS

That's retarded on a planet. Just do that in space instead. Literally no one is going to be doing that on a planet outside of theme parks.

>>10050673
It just seems to me if you have that level of engineering ability and power generating capacity to make a massively complex rotating city safe enough to have a whole population then I can only imagine what other hurdles you've accomplished that might make it irrelevant.

>>10050684 what the cuck are you talking about.
I think a rotating habitat on the surface is super gay.
Like lamegay.
And im a faggot.
I think we should either have rotating taurus rings, O'Neil cylinders, bernal spheres mined from asteroids in orbit and lagrange points around mars and other planets to control bots on the surface of mars in real time to construct stationary habitats for people to adapt over generations to the gravity of said worlds.
Cuck

>>10048300
Literally why?

>>10051545
Not that anon but I imagine because they want to preserve and or spread life across the solar system?

Friendly reminder that all SpaceX fans are losers who spend all their time watching youtube videos and posting on reddit rather than having a real, meaningful career in something they like.

>>10048300
The thing is anon, its important to make sure there isn't already life there.
Finding even microbial life on another world would create new fields in science that could ultimately inform us more generally about what "Life" is.
If you just run around rubbing your grubby little hands on everything in reach like a hyperactive 6 year old then you've contaminated the place.
Not to mention that panspermia may be the ultimate origin of life on earth, which implies it could be the source of life on other planets too.
I would save operation dirtyfingers for when humanity faces some kind of looming existential disaster for all life on earth.

10052181

>>10046612
Does Latin America even have a space programmed?
Cant recall reading anything that would suggest it does.

>>10050316
>>10050367
Man I hate autists, by your logic we should build nuclear powerplants in the Grand Canyon because "hurr it's just rocks". Mars has immense natural beauty and nobody is gonna let you spergs destroy it. Actually one of the arguments against space colonization is that we will just ruin other worlds with the same bullshit and it looks like they are right.

>>10052313
>Does Latin America even have a space programmed?
Cape Canaveral is in Florida.

>>10052363
Florida is Latin America? I thought it was part of North America.

>>10052375
You've obviously never been to Miami.

>>10052383
Not a US native, so no.

>>10052335
you estrogen mongrels that whine about have absolutely no money or power
you'll get to watch us conquer the stars from your cuck shed, and no more

>>10052383
>NASA is Latin American because it's near Latin America
>despite rockets working best when near the equator
dank fucking bait, you got me to reply

>>10052461
>not wanting roast martian pig and great big asses in space
you don't know what you're missing.

>>10052479
You don't need to bring the population to have their food
I'd rather not have the first extraterrestrial city turn into Rio

>>10052483
I agree, no Hue Hues. Just Space Cubanos.

>>10052435
Lol because you are elon musk right?
You invented the cuck shed and will die in it keker pecker.
My dick left an imprint on mars that your papa is thirsty for.
Also, rotational cities orbiting mars for the win

>>10028783
Women will keep men in the cum and joke mines of mars

>>10028438
how about chickens? Could take them there as fertilized eggs with an incubator, grow grass/keep insects for them to consume, or would that not be efficient, it would probably end up taking too much room/energy?

>>10028942
turn this into a novel, you can call it, The Martian

>>10052483
what is wrong with rio?

>>10052646
Chickens are really useful in traditional farms because if you let them free range in your fields they eat the bugs that are already there, and then poop all over the place, which naturally fertilizes it. If you have cows they will also peck through the cowpies to get to the maggots and fly eggs that get laid there, breaking up the cow patties so they break down and help fertilize the fields as well.
On top of this, they're easy to clean and cook, it's good meat, and they lay eggs that are good sources of protein.
On mars I don't think you're going to have big open areas for them to eat already existing bugs. If you're bringing crickets and grain up with you, you're better off just processing that into food for your colonist, rather than feeding it through another trophic layer.
If you're far enough along in the colony where people can afford luxury items then you could have the expense so that you can have chicken and eggs.
For a long time your people are going to be eating astronaut rations and MRE's. Your first agriculture is going to have to be subsistence. is It will be a while before you're eating fresh corn on the cob from marsfarm9.
You might not even bring animals with you just grow fake-meat in a petri dish.

>>10052679
the very definition of shithole
constant murder, complete lawlessness, general savagery as baseline existence

>>10052686

Thanks

There is no way the first colonies and habitats will have and farm animals apart from maybe fish for aquaponics systems and possibly insects to eat for protein.
When animals are stressed they consume ALOT of oxygen and fart and shit and outgas like a mofo.
The sheer amount of food and water you need for one pilound of beef or even a chicken breast is ALREADY unsustainable here on earth.
It would be extremely difficult and not worth bringing any animals in like the first 30 of mars trips unless very very small. They would be super stressed and consume way to fuckin much of everything.
Seriously guys its already a problem here on earth how much a cow consumes. Look that shit up.
Cucklordz

>>10027738
your idea is shit, it makes nos ense to waste delta v for that.

but it will be fantastic if they get to film the BFR (or anything from that matter) aerobreaking coming from another planet

If u born on mars are you taller?

>>10037276
>. We will go there, plant a flag, maybe die there, and never fucking return, because there is nothing there, and there is no reason other than exploration, just like the moon

while i think planetary exporation on a space the size of dildo traveling through millions of space of radiation laced space is retarded, i am grateful our ancestor never had that attitude and thinking. Before anyone set foot anywhere in another country there was nothing there but rock and dirt and yes some plants but there was no infrastructure or anything we had to carry it there. Everything had to be bootstrapped.

Mars/Moon will be the same thing.

that said, we cant negate the impact of limited gravity on the human body. which i genuinely why i think we as humans in our limited form wont be doing space exporation any time soon, unless there is some miracle drug that enhances muscle and bone density in low gravity.

>>10052646
>>10052686
You'd need a rotating transport to bring chickens. They need gravity to swallow. I suppose you could try feeding it intravenously but thats a lot of hassle.

You cucktards dont you see that beinging chickens is a massive strain on resources and an increase for getting sick? Satan wept.

>>10052944
>take habitat
>spin it
>now have gravity
at least learn some basic science friendo
it will help you when discussing science things

>>10041068
There's no real difference between doing that and peasants making the great wall of China. It's just going to be a job for some people to do over the centuries.

>>10053958
And unlike the wall, your offworld colony might actually end up being something besides a tourist attraction.

Dumbledore for president.
Also, asteroid mining will make a lot of this easier.
If you watch the deep space industries promo vid from a few years ago those bitches have the right idea. All the rocket fuel you want in near earth asteroids.
Just snag one and have the good succ on the frozen h20.
Not to mention manufacturing rotating habitats to send to mars, jupiters moons etc to live comfortably in orbit as bots on the surface build your habitats. That way you got all the plants in your hab right there to bring down to the surfaxe after shielded colonies are built.
Kek

This is a good thread

spacex launch in 4 bongs, just thought you should all know

>>10053524
guinea pigs are literally better than chickens in every respect for meat production anyways.

>>10055118
not the mental aspect of meat production, and such a thing is very important in an exclusively civilian colony
people are used to eating chicken, people love chicken, they would not however enjoy eating animals widely considered pets by civilized populations

>>10055213
Only takes a single generation of being dependent on something for food to change your opinion of it.

>>10055228
we don't really need to become like the chinese though
we can easily account for meat inefficiency when doing this, since we would not ever allow a time where supplies are riding near zero

>>10055213
>people are used to eating chicken, people love chicken, they would not however enjoy eating animals widely considered pets by civilized populations
After two years of freeze fried rations you're going to appreciate some real meat when you get it.
Plus the whole reason they call it guinea pig is because where it's native, they eat it, and it has a slightly porkish taste.

>>10046627
nice numbers!

Mars won't be colonized in a serious way. It's basically a large asteroid. Even its gravity is kinda shitty.

Better to just build rotating space habitats.

Cucks, are you all stoned? What is the obsession with bringing meat to small stations and habitats with little room for reasources?? Do you undersrand how much food and water guinea pigs actually eat?
Every space agency talks about plants and hydroponics in space because its actually feasible!!!
They never talk about farming animals because its not feasible!!!
Like read a cuckin book guys! Own a guinea pig and find out for yourself!
They would become way too attached to the animals on these lonely trips. .
Have yall not thought about the sickness that can pass IN CLOSE QUARTERS between humans and animals? Breathing in shit stank and animal dander?
How you gonna expect animals to reproduce in these less gravity locations if each generations muscles and bones will be weaker? Humans can perform c section for giving birth. Not on chickens or guinea pigs!!

Growing meat in vats is a technology that will need to mature.

Totally cool with growing meat in vats. That makes waaaaaaay more sense in space and on other planets in small areas. I actually tasted lab grown meat a few months back

>>10052335
no that is not by my logic you fucking moron. earth has a breathable atmosphere, earth has the ability to sustain life. putting a nuclear powerplant in the grand canyon is just as bad as putting it anywhere else because...wait for it.. its still earth and has the ability to impact the ecosystem . there is nothing on mars, in almost the truest sense of the word. there is no ecosystem. nothing but a thin atmosphere and toxic dust.

>>10055908
how was it?

>>10055929
By your reasoning, any random chunk of rock has "natural beauty".

And that's what Mars is. A dead chunk of rock with no atmosphere.

It would be more profitable to beautify the 3.5 million square kilometers of the Sahara Desert than to try the same with the 55 million sq k's of Mars that has no atmo and 1/3 gravity.

>>10055958
you drunk m8? i'm the one that wants to use mars as an industry planet.

>>10055962
lol. YES I AM.

>>10055931
Exactly the same as the real thing.
I wouldnt even no the difference if it was served in a restaurant

>>10055118
>>10055213
>>10055228
>>10055400
>>10055439
Guinea pigs are already meat for a not-insignificant portion of the population. For everyone else its just a matter of not letting people get attached to them.
They're also pretty tasty. There are a few restaurants in the US that sell it too.
That said, meat in general seems inefficient and while food variety is necessary for morale, its not likely to make up more than a luxury section of the diet. Same as the role something like chocolate is now.

>>10055989
food is a huge part of mental health and productivity. Submarine crews get top-tier chow for a reason.
While meat might not be provided, the meals that BFR crews will have will undoubtably be fantastic.

Cucktard >>10055958
By beutifying the sahara desert you would be changing the atmosphere here on earth, the water and weather cycle here on earth.
The idea of terraforming mars or paraterraforming parts of it is that you are making two habitable worlds??? Like duh.
Out of all the dull rocks to inhabit in our system, mars is the most inviting with the most potential for human development.
If you want an industrial world chose one with less gravity and lower escale velocity like ceres or mercury or moons od jupiter.
Ceres has a fuck ton of rocketfuel in the form of water ice and smack dab in the middle of the asteroid belt (lots of metal!)
You could also use ceres as a place for rapists and murderers to waste away in zero gravity instead of death penalty .
Yes Barron rocks shouldnt be fucked with , but if you are gonna turn any world into a resource and power generation, testing facility for roxic sludge, dont do it to a world with a 24 hour daynight cycle. You feckin mook.

Fucktard>>10055997
At least the Sahara would be worth it. You spend all that effort on Mars and it still sucks. Inhabitants would still need to exercise x hours per day just to keep their bones from turning into hollow porcelain.

And what the fuck is a "Barron rocks"? Learn basic language ya brainlet.

>>10056008
>solution to low gravity given earlier in the thread
>shit wizards still refuse to read it and continue spamming that it's impossible and that there is no solution

>>10056008 you absolute and complete lower colon, i just told you why it would NOT be worth it!?
It could fuck up the planet more.
And my misspelling of things is probs because im typing with one thumb as i jerk off to underaged starfish in a 10 gallon saltwater tank i control like a god whilst i think of the taste of your dads delicious cornpipe.
Youre clearly missing the point about having a second ecosystem off world.
Cuck a duck

>>10056057
Where in thread. Wants to read desu

>>10033928

How many times were you dropped on your head as a child, anon? what kind of extreme brain damage prompted your post? are you truly retarded or do you just not know what you're talking about?

>>10037141
Honestly, it's kind of cringy at this point. Brainlets are just breeding like rabbits,

>>10050304
The moon would be a way better industrial park than Mars

>>10056169
why not both?

>>10046320
Never happening. Human beings will simply adapt to life on mars and we'll eventually witness true human speciation. Creationists will never be able to sew their assholes back together.

>>10052747
>a chicken breast is ALREADY unsustainable here on earth
The only thing that's unsustainable is feeding niggers.

>>10056175
Nope.

Mars as an Industrial park is useless compared to the moon.

>moon has lower gravity well to ship stuff on and off world
>closer to earth
>no life for dumb greenies to whine about

>>10056360
>no life for dum
>implying they won't demand lunar water be protected because its exceedingly rare

>>10056057
No solutions to low gravity were given. As far as we know it will just kill your ass. This whole conversation is pointless with chemical rockets anyway. Everyone knows they suck but no one wants to talk about it much because regular people or NGOs owning nuclear rockets in space is fucking terrifying.

>>10027661
Yes

>>10056008
There's already space medicine being developed to counteract the effects of bone demineralisation, the same drugs used to treat osteoporosis can be used to counter the effect of low-g on the bones. Increasing intake of calcium and vit d is also known to help. Since the body tends to hold itself together when there's at least some gravity, we can assume the loss of bone density isn't as exasperated as it would in micro or zero-g. The advent of gene therapy would probably displace all other treatments or could be used in addition with. Muscle loss would be prevented by wearing weighted vests and lifting 60% more weight than you would have on earth.

>>10056738
still gotta deal with the eyeball issues.

>it's another "heh heh gotcha" literal boomer thread

>>10033236
not really, the idea that started with mars direct is to rotate people in and out with every launch window, after the first landing there'd be several descent vehicles inbound each time

>>10056579
the fuck is this shit bait? put more effort in next time 0/10

>>10056360
>closer to earth

Someday people on this board will understand delta v....

>>10056748
This is only known to occur in micro/zero-g environments, this is why Musk favours fast transfer times to reduce the effects of zero-g and background radiation on the human body. I'm sure effective countermeasures will be developed in the coming decades.

>>10056828

You literally go to space and push in the direction of the moon.

You can't do that with mars because you need actual rockets to get you there.

>>10056875

>>10056738
>>10056748
reminder that we still know absolutely nothing about the effects of low g
because the corrupt shitboots at NASA shut down the rotating hab section to experiment, we still only have information on zero and full gravity

>>10056875
0/10 see me after class

Lets see how smart you are /sci/
>mass spent on shielding transfer vehicle to cut radiation by half
>vs mass spent as fuel to cut travel time by half

>>10056908
spend it on fuel. A doubling or whatever of lifetime cancer risk is still a very very small number.

>>10056890
Microgravity research is more important.
We can have the partial g spin research lab after the lunar gateway completes its mission in the 2070's.

>>10056908
You need a LOT more shielding than that. Speed is the only realistic option until we build big shit in space.

>>10056914
Wouldn't the radiation dose be identical in both cases though?

>>10056924
Cube of the distance. Less time near the sun is better

>>10056934
It's actually interstellar gamma rays that are the main issue and not the alphas and betas from the sun. Interesting thing to note is the proposed meme magnetic shields for ships do nothing about those, while the thin martian atmosphere does since the only way to stop gammas is to put a lot of something between you and them.

>>10056952
not gamma rays

the threat comes from galactic cosmic rays, which are protons and heavier nuclei traveling at high velocities

>>10056825
Not shitbait, just questions everyone ignores because there are no answers. It's more satisfying to your brain to stack playdough in the playpen than stand up on your tippy toes and look at the monsters waiting in the dark.

>>10057048
0/10

>>10027661
Would it be practical to spin one of those BFR's along its axis to generate "gravity" or are they too narrow at 9 meters?

>>10057109
far too narrow
max spin rate to not have motion sickness is 2 RPM, and that probably wont give enough gravity to be noticeable

>>10057109
This is impractical due to the small diameter and unnecessary due to fast transit times, exercise and taking preventative drugs is probably enough for you to recover in mars gravity.

>>10057109
Not really needed for Mars but will be for Jupiter.
For decent result you need two tail to tail as a single one will not work right.
But since they'll be sent in groups anyway and the rear connections are quite sturdy...
>>10057119
I wonder if it will be possible to rotate the BFS just slightly so that liquids can settle, not enough for useful spin gravity but sufficient to help with comfort while not inducing nausea.

>>10056952
>>10056961
Hydrogen-rich materials such as HBNNT could be used as hull material if production could be scaled up, carbon fiber itself would cut down potential exposure by as much as half, running water in between the hull and habitable area would act as an additional layer of protection. The problem with magnetic field shielding that protect against cosmic rays is the energy requirements and complexity of the device, it's still feasible, though prohibitively expensive.

>>10057109
It isn't practical or feasible to do 99% of the shit floated in this thread. Anons are too out of touch to admit that the human race is 100 years away from colonizing Mars.

>>10057119
>>10057148
>>10057167
Thanks.
How viable is the method mentioned in Seveneves, which in this case would mean stringing two (or more) BFR's up by their noses with a length of cable, then spinning the cable to to make gravity this way, toward the direction of thrust. A cable would solve the narrowness issue. But is this solution too flimsy or unstable? Seems like it would require much more RCS for set up / set down.

>>10057215
A "full" colony might be a big piece of work, but an outpost is still feasible. at least

>>10057215
Technology for almost everything for an off planet colony exists as off the shelf fucking components.

>>10057245
he's shitposting for (You)s
don't respond to them, responses are what they want

>>10057223
RCS itself is not the issue. It's the fact the BFS does not have nose-to-nose connection in its current design and whether it is even structurally capable of withstanding stress in such direction.
Also, it's inner tanks are insulated by using the outer ones as sort of dewar by pointing them away from the sun. If it's spinning obviously they will be exposed during the rotational period and that will increase boiloff.

>>10057254
Based on what they have shown they will be craning the BFS on top of the booster which will mean the tip of the rocket must have some kind of hardpoint capable of taking it's weight at 1g. I agree though that more boiloff and less shielding from the sun is not worth it.

>>10055958
>A dead chunk of rock with no atmosphere.
It objectively has an atmosphere anon.

>>10056890
Dafuq you talkin about they shut down their rotating habitat? They didnt have one??

Also , yeah i was also wondering if you could connect 2 MCT units via a structure or length of cables or some shit and rotate for partial gravity.
Im suprised no space agency has taken something like two soyuz or cargo stypevmodules and connected them with like a 50 foot tether and rotated them for short experiments

>>10057612
They have been kicking around the idea for a while. One of the early ideas for a mars transit.

>>10057612
Hes probably talking about CAM for the ISS. It was mostly built when they cancelled it.
>>10056908
Spend it on shielding but build cyclers? Depends entirely on the mission architecture.

>>10057999
Shielded cyclers are much better if they can use a VASIMIR type thruster rather than chemical but for now I guess we are just stuck with hurling minimally shielded rocket fuel tin cans. I watched that new BFR entry profile into Mars, damn those guys better bring their brown pants, it looks horrifying.

>>10057119
Do you have a source on that RPM? Be useful to confirm that.