Okay folks, help me out with this one

Because I don't understand. I keep seeing articles about getting people to Mars. Mars is pretty much in the area when the sun explodes sooooo I'm not sure how moving people from one planet to another can help.

Is there something that I'm not understanding?

Thanks for any good advice you can provide 🙂

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Learninglife9 · 61-69, F

Dreams of certain groups of men to conquer and colonize.

If you look at Earth those certain groups have already conquered and colonized all possible places of Earth.

Odd are against man, not saying he never will - colonizing even the planets are the Moon that is closest to the earth.

They would have to conquer gravity

They would have to conquer oxygen

They would have to conquer the ability to grow food

They would have to conquer the ability to have drinkable water

They would have to conquer sustainable crafts that won't explode or break up

And considering the distance of the planets especially those outside of this solar system they would have to conquer fuel. The Moon is over 200,000 miles away.

ArishMell · 70-79, M

@Learninglife9 Distance seems one problem the planet-colonising dreamers don't grasp.

Astronomically the Moon is very close but still about three days' travel away, at least by present standards.

Nor do the dreamers really suggest any sensible reason for "colonising" other bodies, nor address how any visiting team is supposed to return home. There are two possible, fairly credible reasons for visiting: scientific research beyond what is practical by remotely-controlled equipment, and less realistically, minerals mining.

Such mining brings its own problems of how to send thousands of tonnes of ore back to Earth, and bring them down safely. (Or tens of tonnes of the metals if it were possible to refine them there... which I doubt very much.)

NerdyPotato ·

When the sun explodes, anything we could possibly reach will be gone. That's not expected to happen anytime soon though, so we could theoretically survive much longer there than on Earth if we keep going like this.

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twiigss · M

@NerdyPotato That makes sense at this point in time to just send a few hundred. Which I thought I had read in one of the articles I usually peruse. But, I'm sure that if humans reproduce on Mars, they will be born with different genetics than people on Earth. It is a cool topic though. I just keep thinking, imagine if in 1950 we were as technologically advanced as we are right now, imagine where we would be in 2024.

NerdyPotato ·

@twiigss evolution may go in a different direction when other skills become more important, but that won't happen in the span of a few generations.

twiigss · M

@NerdyPotato Oh. Well it'll be interesting for sure. None of us will be around to see the end result.

ArishMell · 70-79, M

Not understanding? Well, yes, this:

Mars is pretty much in the area when the sun explodes

I am not sure what you mean by that, but Mars is further from the Sun than is the Earth; and it is a cold, arid desert with no atmosphere that we could breathe.

The only sensible reason for people to visit Mars, should the round-trip and their stay on the planet be considered technically feasible and sufficiently safe - and you could find suitable volunteers - would be scientific research.

Bel6EQUJ5

...when the sun explodes...

That's your error, right there. Our own sun is the wrong kind of star to flare up into a supernova (the Chandrasekhar limit of 1.4 solar masses isn't met).
It will, however, eventually die out, but that will happen so far into the future of mankind that we hardly have to even think about that eventuality. By the time we do, with any luck (actually, lots of luck, because we seem intent on destroying ourselves right now) we'll have colonised the Solar System aeons ago and the nearby stars as well.

twiigss · M

@Bel6EQUJ5 I want to have that hope that humanity does colonize planets in the universe, but I have a feeling outside of our solar system the planets will be very far and few between, and most will be inhospitable.

I think because we are intent on destroying ourselves that, we will move very forward with technology but after that I don't think we'll get too far.

Wireman · 31-35, M

The Mars they refer to in in the studio.

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