Living on Mars. Would you do it ?

Great Debates
1

I am not certain if this is a poll or debate.

Since the Spirit and Opportunity rovers are in the news and we have had various threads about Mars and spaceflight, I thought it would be interesting to consider the reasons people would want to take up the challenge of traveling to Mars with the intent of living there. The problems with living on Mars are formidable and even perhaps beyond our capabilities for centuries to come (Zubrin not withstanding) I am more interested in the personal reasons people would want to adopt that way of life.

I can see some advantages and disadvantages to actually living on Mars.

Advantages

Starting a completely new human society from scratch.
Bringing life to a dead world.
To explore lands no one has ever seen.
The ability to solve unique problems.
The fellowship and comradery of like minded people who share the same dream.

Disadvantages

Living in a corridor culture, never being able to go outside for a breath of fresh air.
Never speaking directly to loved ones on Earth.
The very real danger of death from equipment malfunction.
The stress of such a pioneering effort that may very well fail.
The knowledge of being the most isolated group of people in human history.

So if a Mars colony was recruiting, would you sign up?

2

Yes. Sign me up, tell me what to pack, and I’m there. Get me off the world with these people…

Though, with my luck, we’d see the same thing we saw in the 1600s — the migration of the religious whackos to the (literally in this case) New World.

3

If someone said to me I could go right now, I’d have to decline. My wife has zero interest in space exploration, and if we couldn’t go together, then I wouldn’t go. A trip to Mars and back alone would take a year or so, and the whole mission would probably be multiple years in length. That would be too much to ask of my marriage.

However, if you asked five years ago, when I was single and had no marriage prospects, that’d be a tougher call. I get along fine with my family, and love my neices to death. The prospect of not seeing any of them for years might be acceptible, but I’ve never really been confronted with such a choice, so it’s hard to imagine how I’d really handle it.

It would take a unique kind of person, I think, to agree to the one-way trip. Probably many current astronauts could handle five, maybe ten years away, but for good? Humanity hasn’t really faced options like that on a large scale since probably the 17th or 18th century, at the latest. In the technological societies that will be sending these explorers to Mars, we’ve all grown pretty accustomed to being able to get anywhere in at most a few days, and to be able to communicate with our friends and loved ones almost on demand. Hell, we get bent out of shape when we can’t get cell phone coverage. I don’t think any of us can really imagine what it must have been like for explorers and their families in, say, the days of Columbus. Back then, I suppose, people who said goodbye on the dock must have figured odds were about even they’d never see each other again. Voyages took so long, and even our best technology was so fragile, that it was perfectly reasonable to expect the ship might sink, or someone either at home or in the boat would die of some disease or other mishap before they had a chance to reunite. And not knowing! Can any of us handle that anymore? Imagine: Your brother or father sails away West, and at best you may see him six months from now. What if he doesn’t return in six months? Well, maybe storms blew him off course. After eight months? Maybe he’s shipwrecked but still alive. If so, what can you do? There’s a vast ocean, with uncharted islands. How could you ever expect to find a needle in such an immense haystack? What if he drowned, or was killed by pirates or natives? What if he fell ill and succumbed to disease? You would have no clue. You might never know. Eventually you would just have to give up on watching the horizon and waiting, and figure out how to get on with your life in your loved one’s absense. What if it was your husband, and, thinking him long dead, you remarry, only to have him return after ten years’ time?

I guess it will never be that bad for the Martian colonists or their families. At worst, if something goes wrong, they’ll have to wait a day or two before they give up all hope. Maybe that would make it easier. But we’re a much closer society than we ever were in some respects, so the stresses of separation may be more severe.

It’s really a fascinating question to ponder.

4

I’d definitely go if I could take my wife with me. What an opportunity!! To explore a whole new world, to create a whole new fronteer and life. Hell ya…sign me up! :slight_smile:

-XT

5

Before you sign up to live on Mars, take a practice run. Try living in Antarctica, or the middle of the Sahara desert, or one of Canada’s northern islands. If you have the technological know-how to stay alive on Mars for years, one of those places should be a piece of cake, even if you have to grow all your food in sealed, temperature controlled greenhouses, produce all your own energy, health care, etc etc etc. If living in a dome on Baffin Island doesn’t sound appealing, I imagine Mars would be ten times worse.

6

Hmm…I’d love to live on a dome on Baffin Island, or deep in the ice under Antartica. I think lack of money to get something like that set up is the only thing really stopping me.

As for living on Mars, I’d love to, though I’d wait until the technology was available to change my form into something that could survive out on the surface. I’d assume a thicker hide would be in order, as well as a nose that could pressurize it’s own air, maybe taking oxygen from the soil, or some way to store oxygen internally for long periods of time. Wings would be nice too…so I could jump off the rim of Vallis Marinaris.

7

I guess another thing I’d need to consider is “would I be worth a damn after the trip and a year or more in Martian gravity?” With today’s technology and enough money, we could get people to Mars in about six months. I think the longest time a person has spent in microgravity for a single stretch is a little under 200 days, so we know someone could at least survive the trip. From what I understand, even with a rigorous excercise routine, people who return from long periods in orbit can barely move, and most of them can’t even get up out of the space capsule unassisted. Also, microgravity wreaks havoc with human physiology. Basically, your body just falls apart. Bone loss is one of the best-described problems, but there are all kinds of other issues. Mentally, it takes a serious toll being cooped up with only a few people for months on end. Keeping busy is the only way some of these people keep from going batty. I’d probably get screened-out right from the get-go because, frankly, I really need my space sometimes (I don’t mean the outer kind). I’d probably turn pretty anti-social in a bottle no bigger than a one-bedroom apartment with three other people for six months. Yeah, I’m pretty sure I couldn’t take that.

OK, say I was a more mentally stable individual, and didn’t lose my mind on the trip. I’ve been in zero G for 6 months, and now I’ve got to get up and get around. I suppose that would be doable. But how will I look in a year at 0.3 G? Would my body stop breaking down in Mars’ gravity? Would the degradation just slow down? Would the effects be reversible once I got home?

I’m pretty sure these answers to these questions are completely unknown at this point.

8

Pack?

Did Adam and Eve bring luggage with them on their way to the apple tree? You get dropped off with nothing but a smile. Just think, all the rocks (that may or may not have contained a drop of water 6 million years ago) that you can eat.

9

I’d go, though they wouldn’t take me. I require way too much medical support. In fact, I probably wouldn’t survive liftoff. But assuming that I could survive the ride, I’d probably be pretty happy in such a place, if I could stand my fellow colonists.

I’m already well adapted to living in just a few rooms. I rarely go out of the house now, and even then it’s most often to keep a doctor’s appointment or to get tests run on me. I almost never go out of the house just to go out. The Martian day is 24 hours, 39 minutes and 35 seconds, so I don’t think that I’d have to adjust the doses of my medications. The lighter gravitational pull of Mars would be a relief to my poor arthritic joints, and probably would ease my congestive heart failure. When I was confined to a single room with attached bathroom in the hospital for a week, it was no problem to stay in that room. I fretted about the lack of Internet access, but I was all right with living in a small room.

I’ve been spayed, so that could work for me or against me, depending on whether the colony only wants fertile people for its members. Even if I hadn’t had my uterus and ovaries taken out, I’d be too old, really, to get pregnant. And even if I was capable of getting pregnant, I probably wouldn’t want or be capable of carrying a pregnancy to term, due to health reasons. Also, I’m not sure that I really want to pass on my genes unless they’re heavily modified.

Things that would count against me…I can really annoy some people. This usually isn’t intentional on my part, but I know that sometimes I can really get under someone’s skin. When this happens, I’ve found that it’s just best if I avoid that person, which would probably not be possible in a small establishment. I’ve already mentioned that I have health problems, which would require more resources than the average person. I don’t have the skills that a colonist would need. I don’t know if I could learn those skills, either. It would be a oneway trip for me, as I’m sure that I couldn’t re-acclimate myself to Earth. Hell, I have a hard enough time convalescing after a bad episode of cellulitis.

It would be hard to never see my parents or daughter in the flesh again, and that would be the major drawback. I’d also find it hard if my daughter set off to colonize a new world on a oneway trip. But I think it would be worth it.

10

Some of the pro :cool: posals for a MARS colony sound pretty good…for example, suppose you couldroof over a small crater with clear plastic or glass. Then, the huge space could be pressurized and planted with trres, crops, etc. You could even have a small forest, and domestic animals. It would be like living on a small farm…excepet you would have to wear a spacesuit togo outside.
If the Martian soil is capable of sustaining crops, I see no reason why humans could not live on the planet.
Plus, think of what basket ball on Mars would be like!