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http://www.nasa.gov/feature/can-plants-grow-with-mars-soil The main issue would be filtering the water and ensuring enough nitrogen, but Martian soil has everything to support plant life.
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Feb 9, 2016 20:13
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Effectronica posted:http://www.nasa.gov/feature/can-plants-grow-with-mars-soil Great, we can grow some plants while the "colonists" die from severe thyroid issues. -There is no non-scientific reason to ever set foot on mars. -There will never be a permanent human presence on mars outside of incredibly expensive science stations. -Mars has been scientifically proven to be a really stupid place. Baronjutter fucked around with this message at 20:18 on Feb 9, 2016 |
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Feb 9, 2016 20:15
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Baronjutter posted:Great, we can grow some plants while the "colonists" die from severe thyroid issues. If we can make Mars have a thick enough atmosphere to breathe and have it stick around for hundreds of thousands of years, we can clear out the perchlorates.
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Feb 9, 2016 20:17
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Effectronica posted:If we can make Mars have a thick enough atmosphere to breathe and have it stick around for hundreds of thousands of years, we can clear out the perchlorates. Correct, with magic and unlimited resources we could in theory do something.
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Feb 9, 2016 20:19
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Mars gets significantly less sunlight than earth given its greater distance from the sun so you'd have to provide artificial light or deal with smaller crops giving lower yields. The truth is the entire notion of permanently settled colonies on other planets is mostly a byproduct of golden age science fiction or fanciful movies like Star Wars and Star Trek. The incredible complications of trying to adapt a human population to the differences in atmosphere and gravity mean that the first permanent populations of humans living outside the earth are likely to live in space habitats rather than on planets.
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Feb 9, 2016 20:20
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Baronjutter posted:Correct, with magic and unlimited resources we could in theory do something. Okay, but we don't need unlimited resources to clear out enough room for high-intensity farming or hydroponics. We possibly don't even need that many resources if we make some breakthroughs on DNA sequencing and develop perchlorate-eating extremophiles.
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Feb 9, 2016 20:23
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Effectronica posted:Okay, but we don't need unlimited resources to clear out enough room for high-intensity farming or hydroponics. We possibly don't even need that many resources if we make some breakthroughs on DNA sequencing and develop perchlorate-eating extremophiles. Unless we have nearly unlimited resources this would seem like a hard plan to justify given the seemingly massive opportunity costs it imposes. Why are we trying to transform Mars into a hospitable environment for high-intensity farming in the first place?
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Feb 9, 2016 20:28
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Helsing posted:Unless we have nearly unlimited resources this would seem like a hard plan to justify given the seemingly massive opportunity costs it imposes. Why are we trying to transform Mars into a hospitable environment for high-intensity farming in the first place? Probably because it's easier than conjuring up a working ecosystem out of nothing, as would be required for space habs like the O'Neill Cylinder.
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Feb 9, 2016 20:40
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Would it really? That's an honest question because I have no idea. I would assume that the health complications of living in a low-gee environment and the huge costs of having to change a planet's environment would make a viable Mars colony a lot more expensive than a permanently inhabited space station. This is way outside my field of expertise though so I'm genuinely curious if there's a case to be made that colonizing planets is cheaper than the alternative forms of living outside planet earth. My intuition would be that it's going to be the opposite.
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Feb 9, 2016 20:57
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Effectronica posted:Probably because it's easier than conjuring up a working ecosystem out of nothing, as would be required for space habs like the O'Neill Cylinder. Actually, conjuring up a working ecosystem out of nothing, ie a blank slate we have full control over, is a hell of a lot easier than trying to create one in an outright hostile location with a ton of very important variables we can't control. Also there's nothing of economic value on mars and even if there was it's at the bottom of a gravity well (a lovely low gravity well that can't hold an atmosphere) Space humans are going to live within the earth-moon sphere parked at lagrange points in giant tubes because there's where all the economic activity (mining asteroids) will take place. Just like with historical colonization, the main reason humans go places and build new towns is economics. Political/social pressures might push people out away from earth, where the distance won't be seen as a crippling economic flaw but rather a willing form of isolation. But there is no pressure, no force, no reason to ever colonize mars or another planet in the solar system. Maybe it will be done just for the sake of doing it, but there will never be a practical reason. The future of space is spinning tubes and wheels all the way down. You'd be a rube to not want to live in a tube.
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Feb 9, 2016 21:00
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Helsing posted:Would it really? Mars is going to be like an early-gen space hab except you don't have to crack silicates and carbonates for oxygen, just compress the atmosphere enough, and you don't have to haul dirt up. You also don't have to use as much material for the same total area of land being used! Now, in the long run, space habs will probably be better, but in the short run, planets still have some really attractive features.
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Feb 9, 2016 21:03
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OwlFancier posted:Huh, weird, would have thought the lack of life and aridity of the planet would mean more contaminants in the surface soil. As Baronjutter explained, yes the soil is toxic and no, it isn't loving heavy metal what is wrong with you? Do you think lifeless planets magically get heavy metals deposited onto them by evil aliens or how did you get this poo poo? Do you think motherfucking Pluto has a thick layer of Samarium and Lead on his surface?
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Feb 9, 2016 22:17
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Libluini posted:As Baronjutter explained, yes the soil is toxic and no, it isn't loving heavy metal what is wrong with you? Do you think lifeless planets magically get heavy metals deposited onto them by evil aliens or how did you get this poo poo? No, I thought that perhaps rainfall and the heavy layer of plant cover on Earth helped to keep the soil more discretely layered, while a planet with no rain cycle but still an atmosphere and thus winds and dust storms would have a more mixed mineral content in the upper soil.
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Feb 9, 2016 22:25
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Who cares
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Feb 9, 2016 22:41
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Baronjutter posted:Actually, conjuring up a working ecosystem out of nothing, ie a blank slate we have full control over, is a hell of a lot easier than trying to create one in an outright hostile location with a ton of very important variables we can't control. A lot of the most impressive recent progress in space has come from a company whose stated goal is to colonize Mars, you're right that it's not really practical but I think it'll happen first just because if you squint real hard you can pretend Mars sort of looks like the wild west and people seem to "get" that on an instinctual level I mean you and I might be down with living in a roughly Pentagon sized space torus made from Mooncrete stuffed kevlar bags if it meant getting away from the drat rich people and their boots but even if you were to show most people visualizations of such a place they'd freak out at the prospect of living "inside" their whole lives even if the whole drat thing was an open air concept with parks and streams and poo poo Either way it's good that we move off world because the means to live in space will eventually provide the opportunity to flee the kinds of economic systems that oppress so many people here on Earth
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Feb 9, 2016 22:43
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Tighclops posted:A lot of the most impressive recent progress in space has come from a company whose stated goal is to colonize Mars, you're right that it's not really practical but I think it'll happen first just because if you squint real hard you can pretend Mars sort of looks like the wild west and people seem to "get" that on an instinctual level Well, assuming that the capitalists let the communists have the means of producing space habitats for long enough to build one of their own, anyway.
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Feb 9, 2016 22:45
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I think it'll be tougher to tell people what to do given the distances that will eventually be involved
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Feb 9, 2016 22:48
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The racial composition of the first Mars Colony will be irrelevant, because they'll all be turned into possessed zombies when the demons invade.
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Feb 10, 2016 20:59
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Mars will be the first planet that will be able to celebrate the entirety of it's white population being killed. It will also be the first planet where the majority of its white population dies from starvation, poor infrastructure, and preventable health problems.
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Feb 10, 2016 21:03
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Better question is why don't we colonize Venus. At least it has a sulphuric acid athmosphere, you can get good wattage from the Sun providing you live in a floating city. No not on the surface you dumb idiots. A loving floating city. You know a city over the clouds? like a Cloud City? From Star Trek? Jeez... Plus Venus has better pun potential.
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Feb 10, 2016 21:25
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 http://vignette4.wikia.nocookie.net/starwars/images/0/06/Lando_TESB30.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20100816115933
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Feb 10, 2016 21:27
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Baronjutter posted:Mars will be the first planet that will be able to celebrate the entirety of it's white population being killed. Considering that Mars receives considerably less sunlight than Earth, isn't it more likely that any people that settle on the planet will eventually become paler than anyone from Earth?
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Feb 10, 2016 21:35
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Kopijeger posted:Considering that Mars receives considerably less sunlight than Earth, isn't it more likely that any people that settle on the planet will eventually become paler than anyone from Earth? Maybe after a few hundred thousand years???
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Feb 10, 2016 22:03
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I am proposing we build a wall in space, and make Mars pay for it.
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Feb 10, 2016 22:28
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Baronjutter posted:
I... I want to own a panel van so that I can have that painted on the side of it.
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Feb 11, 2016 00:04
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Kopijeger posted:Considering that Mars receives considerably less sunlight than Earth, isn't it more likely that any people that settle on the planet will eventually become paler than anyone from Earth? The low gravity environment will also make it so that the average Earthling will look like a roided out dwarf compared to the average Martian.
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Feb 11, 2016 00:05
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I thought the effects of different gravity levels in terms of physical appearance are hugely overstated by science fiction. Space elves and space dwarves will never exist.
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Feb 11, 2016 00:52
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A new species of Human could be genetically engineered to live in zero gravity one day - their feet would be more useful as hands and they could use farts for propulsion.
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Feb 11, 2016 01:14
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More like genetically engineered tentacle people. Sign me up.
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Feb 11, 2016 01:43
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rudatron posted:More like genetically engineered tentacle people. Sign me up. Japanese porn way ahead of the rest of us, as usual
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Feb 11, 2016 01:53
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My Linux Rig posted:Mars will be exclusively colonized by nobodies. It could be colonized.....by bacteria and fungi. In fact, we should do that, colonize Mars with the best of our extremophile life forms. See what happens.
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Feb 11, 2016 06:08
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Lotka Volterra posted:I am proposing we build a wall in space, and make Mars pay for it.  Republican Space Rangers, already way ahead of you.
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Feb 11, 2016 09:32
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I CANNOT EJACULATE WITHOUT SEEING NATIVE AMERICANS BRUTALISED!