Vasectomies have a very low failure rate, but they do fail. On the other hand, I’m pretty sure vows of abstinence have a much higher failure rate.
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We’re already fracking out here on earth, might as well start to fuck up another planet right?
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Many planets are in the universe.
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You don’t have to be particularly gentle with the supplies. The people are kind of fragile, though.
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Beer. Sorry, carbonated beverages won’t survive the low atmospheric pressure of Mars.
Surely you’d be drinking the beer indoors? I guess drinking games on Mars get pretty hardcore.
Last I heard, we hadn’t managed to make anything close to a sealed, self-sustaining habitat on Earth even. The balance always goes off; half of the environmental organisms die while the other half grow out of control, and pretty soon it’s a hell of mold and flies and humidity and they have to abort the experiment. I’m certain it’s possible, and every failure gets us closer, but we’re not there yet.
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True enough, but currently we lack the technology to transport people in a way they will survive getting to and living on a planet that is just next to us, let alone a planet in another solar system. (and I was more making a dig at humans ruining a possibly habitable planet before we can even establish it which would be fitting considering we are horrible at resource management)
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Part of the funding they’re hoping for is from clamor for media feeds. Plan is to document every minute of these people’s lives, both for entertainment and future reference. This is probably part of the reason for the “no sex” stipulation, since avoiding babies is fairly easy. Anybody getting busy would be putting on quite a show.
Well, I may not be a rocket scientist but even Mars will need janitors. Sign me up!
So charge extra for the naughty space channel. Extra revenue.
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That was probably one of the best of Paul D. Bangerson’s porn parodies
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At this point even if a colony can be set up on Mars that would let people survive for the course of their natural lives, I wouldn’t think there would really be enough to do there aside from daily maintenance and quietly waiting for death, considering the likely limitations on what could be sent with them.
One of several things I didn’t quite get about Kim Stanley Robinson’s Red Mars was that not only was it economically feasible to send tons of materiel to Mars in advance of the colonists, but Earth corporations were ready to send so much of it that they were willing to let large portions of it quietly disappear into the hands of rebels. But perhaps that is a subject for another thread.
[quote=“RogerStrong, post:12, topic:51617”]Don’t hold your breath. These folks have no chance - none whatsoever - of going to Mars. Mars One is about collecting application fees. Their timeline is pure fantasy, not even pretending to have anything to do with reality. Their economics for a manned trip are pure fantasy.
That doesn’t mean nothing good will come of it.[/quote]It’s sort of amusing from an existentialist-art-project point of view? Maybe not half-a-million amusing, but then people have spent much more to do much less.
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Good luck with that tablet-friendly newsmedia site of yours, because Medium is way ahead of you on this one with a longread that describes exactly why this will never happen. Also, relevant MetaFilter discussion. tl;dr–the economics don’t work, the science really doesn’t work, and they don’t even have that much in the way of funding. Includes a guest appearance by BB favorite Col. Chris Hadfield, who is likewise skeptical.
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Anything the colonists need to survive has to arrive both intact and precisely where it’s intended. That’s a lot to ask for an interplanetary delivery even when talking about supplies than can survive a bumpier landing than a human crew.
To date the largest payload we’ve managed to get safely to the Martian surface was just shy 900 kg (not counting the heat shield, sky crane or other equipment needed to get it there). That’s roughly the mass of a two-seater Smart car, not counting fuel or passengers.
That effort also pushed NASA to the very limits of its current technology. An impressive feat, but if its indicative of what “current technology” can deliver to Mars then we’re talking about a whole lot small deliveries. Better hope none of the important ones get lost or damaged along the way.
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Mere 70 years ago we were barely able to lob that much of payload at London.
I’d stay cautiously optimistic.
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i don’t want to live on this planet anymore.
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The people behind the TV show can just do what I think they did with Big Brother - a short time delay and switch to another camera if they need to.
A mere century ago we lacked technology to do much more basic things.
And then there are other planet-like places within reach of conventional chemical propulsion; there’s a plenty of moons around the gas giants.
I don’t think we’ll be doing shit until energy storage catches up to computing power.
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Nothing wrong with optimism as long as it stays cautious.
As I’m sure you know the pace of aerospace technology has plateaued a bit since those early decades.
- The 35-year span from 1903-1938 brought us the first powered flight, the first military aircraft, the first commercial aircraft, the first transatlantic flight and large-scale aircraft carriers.
- The 35-year span between 1938 and 1973 brought us jet engines, modern rocket technology, man-made satellites, manned space flight, semi-permanent space stations and unmanned probes to Mars.
- The 35-year span between 1973 and 2008 brought us… better versions of those things?
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Thorium molten-salt reactors. That’s my bet, at least until the fusion thing gets solved.
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