Mars is for robots, not people. I’ve thought that for a long time, and as someone who reads a fair bit of science fiction, I can say that there are many books I have hurled across the room for proposing that we can save humanity by building colonies on Mars…which, admittedly, is the second most hospitable planet in the solar system. Unfortunately, there’s a huge distance between #1 and #2.
I’ve compared colonizing Mars to colonizing Antarctica, to set the bar really low. Except for a few scientific research stations and a few obsolete whaling stations, no one has built long-term, productive homes in Antarctica. It’s just too hostile. But still, it does have air and plentiful water, unlike Mars.
Here’s a better comparison, though: why haven’t we colonized the upper reaches of the Himalayas?. There, air and water are scarce, but not as scarce as on Mars, and it’s only a difficult hike, or a risky helicopter ride, from human population centers. It’s all right there! We can shuttle to and from the place in days, pessimistically, and not months, and it doesn’t require multi-million dollar spaceships to get to it!
The summit of Mount Everest is around 8,800 meters above sea level, squarely within those balmy Earth latitudes that get nice long sunlit days all year round. Compared to anyplace on Mars, it is the very womb of God. No plant life grows there. No animals live there.
Even with steady year-round subtropical sunlight, even with conditions infinitely more nurturing than those found anywhere on Mars, the summit of Mount Everest cannot support complex life. It’s too cold; the air is too thin; there is no liquid water for plants and animals to drink. Standing on the top of Mount Everest, a person can literally look at places where plants and animals happily grow and live and reproduce, yet no species has established a permanent self-sustaining population on the upper slopes of Everest. Even microbes avoid it.
Life on earth writ large, the grand network of life, is a greater and more dynamic terraforming engine than any person could ever conceive. It has been operating ceaselessly for several billions of years. It has not yet terraformed the South Pole or the summit of Mount Everest. On what type of timeframe were you imagining that the shoebox of lichen you send to Mars was going to transform Frozen Airless Radioactive Desert Hell into a place where people could grow wheat?
I could be wrong. The author of that essay could be wrong. I think Elon Musk ought to build a mansion on top of Mount Everest as proof of concept, along with a weed farm and an artificial womb. I think he should move there permanently, just to prove it can be done, and sit there happily stoned and make mountaintop babies.
Except…I think Elon Musk is almost as pessimistic as I am. He has to know he’s not going to be establishing a Mars colony in his lifetime, but he also knows it’s a successful grift to pretend he’s going to.
Albert Burneko’s not the only one: https://www.acityonmars.com/
“I think Elon Musk ought to build a mansion on top of Mount Everest …”
Here I disagree, I would really like to have Musk rather on Mars or even further away from the rest of us.
“No animals live there.”
a jumping spider gets pretty close though!
Even close to the top of Mount Everest, we might be able to find snow algae, glacier fleas and other organisms.
I vote for sending Musk to Mars, in a Tesla would be apt.
Haven’t confirmed this, but a reliable science communicator said the soils on Mars are caustic. Also the sandy grains are sharp so getting caught in a Mars sand storm coumd be disastrous.
Does Musk believe his Mars colony taies? Good question. The stories seem to bring in the money and attention he obviously craves.
On the other hand, he does not seem to be thinking straight these days and I’ve known a few compulsive liars who at some point crashed their lives because they believed their own crap.
It’s basically the same question I have with the clergy and other religious grifters. Do they themseve believe in the faith that give them money and power?
Musk’s fans definitely look like a cult.
The top of mount Everest was once below sea level under a warm tropical ocean. We know that because there are fossils of ancient sea life in the rocks near the summit. So just wait a few million years and Everest will be brought down to sea level again and teem with life.
The uplift that created the Himalayas scoured all the life away from the highest summits, and the eventual subsidence will bring life to recolonize those rocks.
I don’t think that kind of thing is likely on Mars, though.
@ ^ lasius : Tardigrades, extremophiles?
.***
Umm, Bzzzzt! No. Nope, no, no, that is false. Actually they had freaking Dinosaurs in Antarctica for tens or hundreds of millions of years and a complex ecosystem there with many diverse creatures. See,well, anyone else remember, say this episode of the old Walking with Dinosaurs doco?
Walking with dinosaurs Episode 5: Spirits of the ice forests (part 1)
Then there was the Carbonifierous and Eocene too Life existed even on the more extreme Snowball Earths albeit mostly marine. For a lot of our planets (pre)history -certainly most of the Mesozoic, the South polar regions were perfectly habitable and very cool – in both senses of the word!
@7. Ed Seedhouse : I dunno ’bout that. There have certainly been suggestions of Martian life both past and even present on Mars at least the microbial l level and serious speculation about life having actually originated on Mars and then been brought to Earth via bolide impacts.
See among other places : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life_on_Mars#Possible_biosignatures
There’s even more room at the bottoms of our oceans, right here on earth. There is plenty of life there already, and we have the technology to get there!
We can live beneath the waves.
Our friends will all be aboard. And many more of them will live next door.
Sky of blue, and sea of green!
I’ve heard Neil deGrasse Tyson say several times that if we have the technology to “terra-form” Mars why don’t we start with terra-forming…or geo-engineering…Earth. And indeed, this article appeared in Scientific American two days ago: <Scientists Will Engineer the Ocean to Absorb More Carbon Dioxide. The idea of altering the ocean is scary, but using the oceans to sequester carbon dioxide may have some merit. Perhaps first, we should make sure that the vast quantities of methane-hydrates in the ocean are stable.
Musk is already selecting a scapegoat for the Mars expedition failure:
Elon Musk warns ’we’ll never reach Mars if Kamala wins’ after first US Presidential debate with Donald Trump
But the moon is much closer:
Japan to put a small red Swedish house on the Moon
–Carl Sagan
If we must put mere mammals on pedestals because of their brilliance, actual or perceived, I think we should choose hopeful realists like Sagan rather than grifters selling pipe dreams like Elon “Leon the Elongated Muskrat” Musk.
Who is this Albert Burneko anyhow and what are his scientific credentials here? My initial Google-fu finds reference to him as “..one of the 18 Deadspin writers who quit the company last year in protest and reemerged, last week, as Defector Media.”
Source : https://medium.com/@markstenberg/vibe-check-with-albert-burneko-20ea8525be66
Nothing immediately popped up saying this Burneko has any relevant qualifications or background in astronomy or biology or let alone specifically astrobiology or xenology – the latter being, admittedly, a very speculative field with a limited sample size so far.
Seems to me that Clarke’s First Law :
“When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible, he is almost certainly right. When he states that something is impossible, he is very probably wrong.”
(See : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clarke%27s_three_laws )
Applies here:
Oh and incidentally,thinking #8 :
Source : https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/did-life-come-to-earth-from-mars-2378085/
I’m still with the Kim Stanley Robinson of Mars trilogy(Red, Blue, Green) fame vision here – & recommend those very well researched SF novels if folks haven’t read them before. KSR also has some good political ideas for his future Martian societies too FWIW.
@8:
Apparently you have no understanding of geology or plate tectonics. The continents move and Antarctica and Australia were once joined. The planet was once much warmer than today, though we are doing our damnedest to change that.
Your comments in @9: are just silly and show you have no understanding of biology or astronomy. Life may have happened on Mars in the far ancient past, but there is no evidence it is still there from any of the probes that have actually landed on that planet.
@ Walter Solomon :
Source : https://seas.harvard.edu/news/2019/07/material-way-make-mars-habitable
@12: So reaching Mars is a government task now? I thought it would all be Musk and his giant spacedick?
@15. Ed Seedhouse : I’m quite well aware of plate tectonics and also that Earth had very different past Climates thankyou. I did cite Walking with Dinosaurs after all and that should’ve tipped you off to that..
Also the Viking experiments were inconclusive and there’s the idea that we may have detected life there w them only to accidentally kill it :
Source : https://www.livescience.com/space/mars/nasa-may-have-unknowingly-found-and-killed-alien-life-on-mars-50-years-ago-scientist-claims
Okay, there isn’t agreement on this but it is a serious -not silly – suggestion.
Thing is, as yet we don’t know because we don’t have enough evidnece and hopefully that is something that future exploration on Mars will enable us to learn..Life does keep surprising us with how tough and diverse and different it can be.
@ 17. mordred : Could be worse – it could be up to Boeing!
I just wish that the elongated muskrat would try to go to mars. That would end his hateful destruction on this planet!
StevoR: “the Viking experiments were inconclusive”
Inconclusive in Science = “no evidence”.
But I give up. You are a scientific ignoramus. Not that you are ignorant. Ignorance is fine and can be cured. You are pigheaded in your ignorance so you can’t be cured, and therefore the only course open to me is to ignore you. And since I have a way of blocking you from my view, I shall do it. Answer
as you will, but you won’t be talking to me anymore.
@21 Ed Seedhouse wrote: ‘Inconclusive in Science = “no evidence”.’ and of StevoR ‘But I give up. You are a scientific ignoramus.’
I reply: Your petty ad hominem attack leads me to the conclusion that you are a lower life form. StevoR was correct in inferring that inconclusive actually means leading to no conclusion; not closing or settling a point in debate, or a doubtful question. It does not mean “no evidence”.
Off topic, but something to consider: For those of you that are superstitious, it’s Friday the 13th. For those of us that are NOT superstitious, it’s still Friday the 13th.
As soon as I saw the blog headline, I jumped in to post about Zach Weinersmith’s (creator of Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal” webcomic ) book “A City On Mars”! Which I highly recommend!
But elly @1 beat me to it. 😁
Also, space cannabalism ftw!
There’s only three reasons for sending people to Mars:
1) To be first — i.e. politics (public sector) or advertising/hubris (private sector)
2) Science — establishing a small base on Mars would be prohibitively expensive, but if cost was not an issue, human beings are far more flexible and adaptable when it comes to conducting scientific research in situ.
3) Commercial Exploitation — finding resources on Mars that can be profitable even after the cost of sending it back to Earth. Of course, it would have to be something close to “unobtanium” (a la Avatar) to be commercially viable.
I’m guessing that (1) will happen eventually, though probably not in Musk’s lifetime. Some regime or oligarch will eventually find the effort as a PR exercise.
(2) is more likely than (3) but unless there’s a compelling reason for conducting research on Mars (e.g. finding life) then neither is likely in the next hundred years.
Even though Everest might be similar to Mars in hospitable terms, and could serve as a “proof of concept” for colonization, it doesn’t seem like it offers the same promises of scientific discovery. Mars has a lot more unturned stones, and it seems that exploring it from a semi-permanent live-in (on?) human habitat would be far more rewarding scientifically. That doesn’t make it any easier to ensure survival or success, of course.
SteveoR, I think you are wrong. Mars used to have a molten core, heated by radioactive decay. But, because it’s smaller than Earth, those elements were far fewer and the radioactivity has for the most part died out, and there went the magnetic field.
The author’s scientific objections are all absolutely correct.
At one time, Mars was warmer because it had a thicker atmosphere. So, liquid water, perhaps bacteria. The atmosphere was, I understand, blown away by the solar wind somehow (?), is now too thin for liquid water or bacteria. Thin atmosphere now also allows massive doses of lethal radiation on the surface, incompatible with life. At some temperature, cells freeze and burst, thus the cell damage in trying to cryopreserve bodies.
One of the laws of chemistry is that, as temperatures get lower, all chemical reactions slow down. Life is nothing but a bunch of chemical reactions, the temperature of Mars will stop them all, thus, no life. Like when batteries won’t work in the cold.
The surface is, as said above, corrosive: it contains a lot of perchlorate salts which oxidize anything organic, like cells.
And, what to do about what we call on earth “the nitrogen problem”? Nitrogen that can react to form DNA and proteins is available on earth from two sources: a variety of bacteria (for plants, etc.) and the Haber-Bosch process for humans. That’s the only way we can get nitrogen to make most medicines, DNA/RNA, tons of other materials, and, most importantly, nitrogen fertilizers. Even now, half the population of the earth would starve without the crops provided by nitrogen fertilizers, which are a five-step industrial process from our only source, nitrogen gas in the atmosphere.
And, what will they do for energy? Not fossil fuels, for sure. Solar? Mars gets a lot less sunlight that earth, that would have to be massive to sustain their entire colony. And, I think that might be one of the chemical reactions that essentially stops in extreme cold (not sure). In the Mars trilogy, Robinson had to invent “small portable fusion generators”. (Also, a magical complete DNA-repair process to keep the characters alive after all that deadly radiation damage.)
The article is correct, it’s really a good one. Especially the point about life not even being able to colonize some places on earth.
About “the nitrogen problem”: that “half the earth’s population” is literal: 4 billion people depend on the Haber process for food. Chemists have long been worried that, if the population grows, there’d be a severe shortage of nitrogen, which would very efficiently stop population growth (by famine.) Without those five industrial processes on Mars, well, another planet is an awful long way to go for your nitrogen.
The solar wind supposedly didn’t blow away Earth’s atmosphere (or Venus’) to such a thin one because both planets have a lot more gravity than Mars. That makes the escape velocities of gas molecules much, much higher, the wind apparently isn’t strong enough to acheive those velocities.
The tech bros and long-termists breezily wave their hands and say “Technology will fix it!” Not before, as the article says, humans are extinct from destroying earth.
#5: Yes, the Martian surface is rich in perchlorates, which some bacteria can consume for energy, but are toxic to organisms like us. Contrary to the nonsense in a particular book about a stranded astronaut, they would be toxic to potatoes, too.
Also, Mars doesn’t have soil — it has regolith. Materially, it’s not nice stuff to work with.
So, notice how there’s no hydrogen and little helium in earth’s atmosphere? Such light molecules have much lower escape velocities and have blown away long ago.
Helium is only found in earth’s atmosphere because of radioactive decay within the earth, some of which produces helium nuclei. It diffuse up into the atmosphere and we desperately try to capture it before it blows off into the galaxy.
I’m sure humans could technically build atop Everest, but… why? I think the main effect would be to ruin the tourist trap that it already is. There’s no sense of achievement in climbing it if you could’ve just taken a lift.
As it is, it’s getting pretty silly…
…but at least some people still die in the attempt.
(OK, imagine a picture in between those ellipses, which you can see via an image search for “everest queue”. Take your pic.)
Sorry, mistake @28: it’s apparently earth’s magnetosphere that keeps the solar wind from blowing the atmosphere away.
Hydrogen and helium ones are right, though: too light, escape velocities too low.
Once upon a time I was, if not optimistic about space colonization, at least in favor of it.
These days I think the Universe deserves better than to have our genocidal capitalist bullshit exported to it. And also that, if said bullshit continues unabated, we will destroy ourselves with or without space colonization.
(I’d say I also prefer the word and mindset of diaspora rather than colonization, but our cultures are not there yet, and won’t be for a very long time if ever.)
Although it is great fun to talk about colonizing another planet, Class M, as they used to describe in Star Trek, the reality was portrayed in a Star Trek episode, “The Way to Eden,” complete with space hippies! They find the planet Eden, shuttle down to it only to find it poisonous.
Ah, yes, the dratted old evolution produced “plants” with their own, unique proteins – poisonous to humans, even space hippies!
Groovy, daddy-o.
garnetstar @30:
The escape velocity of an object does’t depend on its mass; v = √(2GM/r), where M is the planet’s mass, and r is distance to its centre.
However, for a given force, a lighter object will have greater acceleration, so more readily achieve the escape velocity.
Step one would be to stop anti-terraforming Earth, but apparently we can’t even manage that.
Elon Musk’s Everest lair would be a great place to try this out too! I understand the area near the summit is like a deep freeze full of once highly-motivated people.
@27 garnet star wrote: SteveoR, I think you are wrong. Mars used to have a molten core . . .
I reply: Thanks, you just demonstrated that we can disagree and still be civil about it (even though the scientific evidence you both write about takes me a while to understand.)
and @37 Dunc is correct: Step one would be to stop anti-terraforming Earth, but apparently we can’t even manage that.
I add: almost every terraforming attempt (mountain top removal in mining, California central valley ground subsiding and salinization due massive irrigation and even the many huge waterparks, flooding yards, big fountains and a million swimming pools in Phoenix) yields terrible results.
Rob @6, yeah, that’s what I meant.:) We chemists always call it escape velocity because we as a profession have never really understood what acceleration is.:) I certainly don’t!
StevoR @16
That paper was published 23 years before he wrote what I quoted in Pale Blue Dot. It’s probably safe to assume Sagan changed his mind about the feasibility of terraforming Mars.
I’d prefer it if he went there alone and didn’t inflict his baby-making desire upon anyone at all.
#QElon just said that if Harris wins, we’ll lose our ability to colonize Mars. As if there’s already a colonization program underway that Biden or Harris would scuttle…
@35: Doc Bill
The question of whether alien life — typically microbial and bacterial life — would be fatal to human beings depends on whether those alien organisms are able even to recognize us as viable targets. When European settlers came to America, they brought with them diseases unknown to the Native Americans, yes, but those organisms were already supremely adapted to take advantage of their new human hosts, at great cost in Native American lives. It’s just that they hadn’t had the means to reach that population.
That wouldn’t be the case for any organisms encountered on an alien world, so while it’s possible they could still adapt to infect and kill human beings, it’s much more likely that they wouldn’t even recognize us as food or enemies or hosts, and leave us alone.
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/article/mount-everest-is-teeming-with-life
Now I didn’t read every comment but did look thru them and could not find mention of the magnetic field issue. And while an artificial magnetic field is feasible, it would be a significant undertaking to make it permanent.
Thus, more than likely, humans on Mars would be required to live in space suits when outside and even if the air is made breathable. Crops and homes would need to be underground.
Sorry, but it seems to me to be a pipe dream. But grifting off pipedreams has been a standard money maker for a 1000 years so Musk and other’s are just depending on easy marks like the elite have always done.
I remember reading the Martian and thinking this would be so much easier if Watney was a robot. They wouldn’t have to bother with bringing him home.
why no hydrogen and helium in atmosphere:
hydrogen and helium have very high average speeds which you can calculate with the Maxwell-Boltzmann distribution.
v=√(kT/m)
k boltzmann constant
T temp
m mass
The edge of the earths atmosphere is hotter than on the surface, which increases the speed of gas molecules. the average speed is not high enough for gas to escape, but the speed distribution has a long tail with speeds that are high enough to escape.
So, any H or He molecules that end up high in the atmosphere will have a non-zero chance to have a high enough speed to escape earth.
Thanks @45 John for the link. I didn’t know everest had so much diverse life.
It’s amusing that the billionaire goes on about colonizing Mars when we haven’t even managed anything approaching interplanetary travel. Stranding astronauts on the ISS is what the space industry has managed to achieve at the moment.
There is nothing on Mars worth exploiting, it isn’t able to support life, and we also haven’t managed to invent any terraforming technology.
It’s cool to send robots to explore, but I see no reason to spend any resources toward achieving a SF fantasy.
You know in the 50’s & 60’s people were pessimistic about spaceflight and some fool republican got it stopped claiming they’re throwing that money right into space.
Well um no. Most of the money was spent on earth apart from the value of the spacecraft that burned up.
Many people, including to an extent PZ, claim there is no benefit to space exploration. It’s amazing how tunnel vision narrows the mind.
Probably typing that on a phone in a cat scan.
Is Elon Musk a fucking nutjob? Yep
Is the concept of colonizing mars completely impossible – Nope
Will there be benefits – Yep
Already some in knowledge and science – Y’all remember that word.
Will there be problems – Yep
Will people die – Yep. It’s dangerous shit man but each step brings learnings.
Luckily today my mind is clear as the pain in my body is gone apart from the fireball where I had a knee replacement.
Please start the attacks, It will be amusing, from this next comment
PZ rails against Neil De-Grasse Tyson commenting on biology - Fair to an extent but as long as it's not inaccurate he has the right. Oddly enough PZ commenting on astro/engineering can garner the same attack.
Oddly enough everything in human endeavour is a balance of probability – Risks vs reward. You can’t spend all the money on housing or the environment if you want roads or hospitals. Mono focused opinions are bad whoever has them The world is a spectrum of view. Decisions are made on each competing interest.
Edit on my post, no 51 I think as my mobile screen is to small.
The colouring on the bit about PZ was accidental. I’ll work out how it happened later.
On Elon Musk it should also say
Has Elon Musk never done anything of value ? – Nope
Tesla while dangerous and overpriced in some situations is pushing knowledge ahead. spaceX - same caveats - is adding to science.
Basically if y’all don’t like spending rare dollars on space science then these beautiful dangerous idjitz, private enterprise, are the best way. Theymlearn things and ads to the science while potentially burning up a few rich fools, who paid for the risk, on reentry.
This is the history of science. Some nutjob has an idea and then either proves or disproves it through, oh what’s that word, oh yeah the scientific method
Private investment is the only way some scientific fields wila dance because of the right wing nutjobs whining about it being anti Christian or something OR the left wing nutjobs going feral cause the money should be spent on defunding the police or the environment. Nowmoutnof the two loonies the left wing nut jobs are more correct however they are also wrong as science happens through theories, or hypothesis or whatever who cares, that are proved or disproved through experimentation.
Disclaimer I’m a business analyst who’s probably slightly further right than PZ but way further left than even the centrist parties in Australia, ah the beauty os spectrums.
I try and follow this concept, unfortunately I fail a lot, that I can’t remember the elitist term for. Attack the idea not the man.
wolja: no one is disdaining the idea of exploring Mars; it’s the idea of colonizing it we’re mostly agreed is unworkable.
NASA is quite capable of exploring space, as proven by the Apollo moon landings and the Mars Rover mission, just to provide a few examples.
Private industry is good at vacuuming up millions of tax dollars, polluting wildlife refuges with rocket fuel, and stranding astronauts.
I prefer to fund NASA, not private corporations owned by weird billionaires.
You’ve all heard the term citizen scientist. I call myself a citizen idiot – playing on the disproved trope of idiot savant. I am a citizen scientist in a dilettante sort of way. I’m mainly interested in biology, but have interests across the spectrum. I’m to broken in body to actually help out but touch wood this knee replacement will make that possible.
#59, sorry formatting here confuses me.
That’s my entire point. Colonising mars at the moment is not possible because of lots of reasons. Air, temperature water etc but Terra forming Mars may be possible.
In the 18th century the concept of colonising Antarctica ws deemed impossible. It’s small but it’s happening.
If recent hypothesis that there is a small ocean of water buried under mars turns out correct then Terra forming Mars sometime in the next century might be possible.
You will never know without the research.
My point is also words matter.
Trite responses – All Billionaires are evil or all religious people are evil etc etc is just giving people who disagree with you ammunition.
This argument over theory/law/hypothesis in science communication is a windfall for the idjitz to the right. Basically the average dumb arse doesn’t care. They want something they can understand. So
They keep saying evolution is a theory
Plays into the idiots hands when scientists fight the words not the concept. As I keep saying to people in real life
selling stupid is easy. Selling reality is hard.
So there’s a short somewhere, I’ll find it when I’m back at a proper computer, where Neil De-Grasse Tyson explains why social influencers work. To paraphrase the bar graph says vaccinations are good but Mary Jane Fuckwit says I had a bad reaction so they’re evil. Simple rebuttals to the general populace and not fighting amongst yourselves is a good way to rebut.
So to be clear I’m technically human and I’m trying to practise what I preach but I’m technically human
#54 Absolutely except NASA is constrained by safety and political oversight and counteracting the moron element who get the photos at throwing all that money into space.
Private investment can bypass that to an extent
We learn from the private enterprise but would I fly on space X at the moment. Not if you paid me.
Is just me, but I think the longer the post, the less content it actually has.
I saw a TV show about Ray Bradbury’s Martian Chronicles back in the last century. A documentary!
Or not
And I think wasps in backyards are something to wonder at from afar.
I look forward to libertarian scientists and engineers sending people to Europa.
Wait? I think I saw a Europa report about that.
I look forward to libertarian scientists and engineers sending people to Europa.
Wait? I think I saw a Europa report about that.
#57 Absolutely true PZ’s article was pretty long
Oh you mean my ramblings.
To paraphrase someone – I have the right to say things as long it doesn’t physically or metaphorically hurt someone else
There’s a term for it. Perhaps free speech.
Ta this attack was non harmful to this nutjob, me.
Quite amusing
You don’t seem to get it. Going to another world and trying to live, is not like going to the most inhospitable part of your existing world and trying to live there for no reason.
No one is proposing going to the most inhospitable parts of other worlds for shits ‘n’ giggles. We want go to the most hospitable parts.
Because if life, having spread from the oceans to the land, to everywhere it possibly can, suddenly stops at the boundary 200 km above sea level, then it is doomed.
Why can we not continue evolving and adapting, except now with the aid of technology (which is, of course, an evolved adaptation in itself)?
Why must we be forever confined to our one small pond, and not cross the dry land to other small ponds (metaphorically speaking)?
You seem hung up on the idea that living on Mars is an alternative to living on Earth. As the girl in the taco commercial says, “Why not both”?
And why not every environment where it may be possible? Why put limits on life? Why can’t life do what it has always done, and spread wherever it can?
Of course Musk is an idiot, and a lunatic, and a bigot. But he is not the exemplar of the spirit of life on Earth to want to spread. That’s a human universal. (Well, universal save for the odd cynical professor of biology. X-D )
@21. Ed Seedhouse :
Well, that was rude, escalated quickly, uncalled for and I obvs disagree. You won’t see this (your prerogative & loss) but I’ll just meta-note that I provided supporting evidence for why I think as I do and obvs strongly disagree with your characterisation. Seems to me you are the one being unscientific and refusing to even look at other perspectives and ideas you seem to disagree with. The idea that there’s life on Mars or was in the past and that we should visit, explore and learn about this neighbouring world is hardly fringe, dude!
Also “inconclusive” means that we can’t draw firm conclusions from the evidence NOT that there IS no evidence. The results of teh Viking experiemnts could be interpreted in different ways and haven’t been conclusive either way. FWIW the Viking biological experiments :
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viking_lander_biological_experiments#Scientific_conclusions
Are still being analysed, contemplated and discussed today. They didn’t prove Mars had life but they certainly also haven’t completely ruled it out – hence inconclusive – and hence possible explanations like the one in #18 by astrobiologist Dirk Schulze-Makuch. Some think they rule out life, others disagree and say they indicate there was different life and in any case, they are only for specific spots (western Chryse Planitia & Utopia Planitia) with potential Mars life being found elesewhere notably deeper underground eg in lava tube caves, beneath polar ice, etc…
@27. garnetstar :
Except they aren’t. The article has numerous factual inaccuracies like flatly stating there was never life at the south pole when there was – past dinosaur & other creatures biomes in the Mesozoic as noted in #8 – and is now. Humans & microbes :
Source : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Pole#Flora_and_fauna
Plus :
Source : https://www.newsweek.com/woman-shares-life-south-pole-1834849
Yes, conditions are extremely hostile and there isn’t a lot of dramatic fauna – certianly not permanentlyresident macrofauna but it is there and there are extremeophiles that can cope with the conditions there. Ditto for the summit of Everest as noted by #45. John Morales.
So, the writer – who does not appear to be a scientifici expert in the field as noted in #14 – has made some key errors and shows a lack of knowledge as well as a lack of imagination. He is entitled to his own opinions – in my view unduly pessimistic ones – but NOT to his own facts and he is getting basic facts wrong which costs the article credibility in my view.
One of my big issues with space colonization is we need to be able to build a sustainable, sealed environment in our own backyard before we even think about colonies on lifeless rocks.
Coincidentally, my dad mentioned reading an article about chronic low gravity exposure: I knew that bones lost calcium, but I didn’t know it tended to accumulate in the kidneys… which apparently need 1g to work properly. Mars simply doesn’t have the gravity our kidneys would need.
So, yeah, now I kinda doubt we can do a Mars colony without engineering spaceworthy humans.
Evolution did not stop at any point, and it’s silly to claim that life is doomed if it can’t survive in space or colonize space. The planet was supporting life and evolution just fine for billions of years before humans evolved enough to destroy the planet itself with their unchecked greed and stupidity.
#62 I actually do get it. They had a word for the people who said things like the moving horse would destroy the world or if you don’t worship this specific god you’ll go to hell.
Luddite is the word.
Do I think what Elon wants to do is sensible or practical – No.
Do I think it’s possible over time – de adez to centuries – yes
Oxygen generation is possible now, hard but possible, from rocks through chemical processes
Water generation is possible through drilling, electrolysis, chemical processes etc
Living in a sealed environment is possible – soacelab, submarines etc. damned expensive and damned dangerous but possible.
Can they grow food on Mars – given the above oh shit yeah
Do I think that this post is a good place to summarise the science on this – NO
Do I think that once a small group of people funded by private enterprise and controlled by NASA for the important things like letting the marsnauts survive 6 months and get home initially is possible – yes
I am technically human so I technically write bullshit sometimes and I actually write sarcasm a lot.
To paraphrase – nothing happens in human endeavour without trying, failing and trying again. Eventually you may decide it’s not viable but until you try you just have no actual idea
Also note that Mars still has a molten core :
Source : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars#Physical_characteristics
Plus we have the biome of life deep beneath Earth that could easily also be an aanalogue for life deep beneath the Martian surface esp given the extra water thought to be there :
Source : https://www.sciencealert.com/scientists-lift-lid-on-massive-biosphere-of-life-hidden-under-earth-s-surface
Plus :
Source : https://phys.org/news/2024-02-dna-reveals-unique-microorganisms-evolved.html
There is the idea to about the possible life in places like Lake Vostok, the largets of hundreds of sub-glacial lakes in Antarctica. which may serve as analogues to life on Europa, Encleadus, Mars, etc .. if indeed there’s life there as has been hypotheisised and as Humans are now working on designing and building spacecraft to investigate.
Saying conditions are tough and extreme – fair enough. Saying they are lifeless and sterile and nothing has ever lived there or could ever live there – simply false as well as unimaginative. I wouldn’t underestimate the capabilities of life esp extremophiles byut in general and I wouldn’t understimate the capabilities of Humanity to work wonders and do what some people say cannot be done either.
Oh I’m not a libertarian, assuming as a non yank I understand the term. I fall in the chopper read mode of endeavour – Harden the fuck up or not. Your choice.
I’m a socialist realist – assuming that’s a thing.
I realise that not everything can happen and I realise economic involvement in science is evil but some of us live in the real world
Everything in life is a compromise. You want to spend the entire GDP on stopping climate change. Ok then you grow your own food and don’t drive a car or work as a professor of x. Still what you want to do?
Thought not so now convince the others in the fight that we should spend much less on defence and much more on climate . science . Let’s not fund the police or economics professors and accept that a lot of people will die.
Still want this?
No ok option 3 stop fighting, for you yanks, amongst yourselves and
1. Get Karmala Harris elected with a huge majority
2. Get your representative to lobby for gun control, decreasing defence spending, upping renewables spending etc.
Once you do this welcome to the real world where every single decision involving more than one person is a compromise.
Sorry for the spelling and formatting but phone keyboards are to small and I’m to blind. The knee hurts so bad I can’t get to the keyboard.
I don’t apologise for my statements. I do understand the reality that I’m not 49% correct in everything I say most of the time.
S
#67 very well said. If I could write like that I’d be much more successful
Ther was a great episode of a science doco called How the Universe Works which had a sepculative historyof Martian microbial life and its transfer to earth. segment fromit here 9 mins long Speculative but fascinating and science based.
@29. PZ Myers : In fairness Watney didn’t just use regolith to grow those taters. ;-)
Last comment.
To paraphrase Ricky Gervais, yeah I know you lot hate him,
Free speech means that Elon Musk can say something obviously fucking stupid. It also means you have the right to tell him it's stupid.
I’d free speech is fact free and hurts physically or mentally someone or a group of someone and the collective agrees then it should result in criminal sanctions. Ricky doesn’t agree to this interpretation but the old bladage about sticks and stones is just that – old and completely wrong.
If speech is a dangerous lie or or causes someone to physically do or receive harm then jail them. Otherwise exercise your free speech right to call the hater out
Sorry I lied. This is my last comment.
PZ I have to apologise for this particular series of posts. I did managers syndrome and read the first few lines of your post and thought oh here we go another attack the man not the idea post.
Your post wasn’t like that so my bad – I’m sorry.
I stand by my comments but take them in a less hostile tone as it was quite a well written post.
No not patronising PZ – apologising in my slightly odd way
For a good summary of all the varied problems, read “A City On Mars” by Wienersmith.
There are more problems than I expected, including in transit.
My position on the whole Mars colonization thing is that building on Mars (or any other non-Earthlike planet) combines all of the disadvantages of building in space (lethal environment, enormous distance from resources) with all of the disadvantages of building on Earth (gravity, reactive gasses, dust.) If you can build a city on Mars, you can build one in space more easily, and if you can make that work then it becomes a staging area for any future trips further afield. If you can’t build it in space, at least you found out you can’t build it on Mars without waiting months for it to get there.
Like, build a habitable space city, and I will take your talk of terraforming Mars seriously.
Stuart Smith,
Mostly I agree with you, but one advantage of building on a planet is that you could do so deep underground and so use the regolith to protect you from radiation.
KG: It may also be possible to build a habitable space-city inside a hollowed-out asteroid. That might give you all the shielding you’d need against solar and cosmic radiation. And you could then set the rick spinning at a rate that would give you the gravity you’d prefer, as opposed to the gravity you’d be stuck with on Mars or the Moon.
Robbo @48, yet molecules do reach escape velocity, you’re not taking heat into account.
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-planets-lose-their-atmospheres/
I wonder if science fiction was a mistake that’s poisoned our minds.
Tabby Lavalamp @78: Meh, humans like fantasizing. I think ‘poisoned’ is a bit strong, but some sci-fi fans do seem to have a sort of faith-based approach to their enthusiasms. They’ll say nothing is impossible (OK), and naysayers are either condemned for lack of qualifications, or, if they have qualifications, Clarke’s whatever-the-fuck ‘law’ is invoked. As though sci-fi authors do have qualifications. I say let ’em dream. They’re mostly harmless, if occasionally annoying.
@78. Tabby Lavalamp : You’re kidding right?
Posioning minds?
No. How utterly ridiculous
Inspiring minds and making people take interest in real science and be keen to learn and study and create absolutely yes.
As well as giving so very many people so much pleasure whether interested in science or not.
Might as well try to ban story telling and imagination. Dude WTF?!
StevoR speaks truly:
https://science.nasa.gov/universe/exoplanets/to-boldly-go-how-star-trek-inspired-nasas-planet-hunters/
I’ve heard from so many scientists, their interest came from being inspired by science fiction. I would wager it’s the majority.
@ ^ Silentbob : Thanks
@Silentbob : Thanks . that will be a good read
StevoR, wolja, and Silentbob
Have you read ‘City on Mars’ by Kelly and Zach Weinersmith? They started out enthusiastic, but as they researched found that there are far more unsolved technical problems than they had anticipated; not the least of which involve human biology.
garnetstar @77
yes, i did take heat into account. it is included via the temperature T.
my post was about how molecules do reach escape velocity via having a high temp and a long tail on the maxwell-boltzmann distribution which does give a small fraction of molecules a high enough velocity to escape, even though average molecules don’t.
the article you posted also mentioned hydrodynamic escape. i hadn’t heard of that. pretty neat!