Mars: One Way

[it]

Originally Posted by glatt

Sure, a machine is great for doing a specific task, but if the point is to colonize a place with living creatures, you need living creatures to do that.

^ That.

There is no doubt that at the cost of a single human mission you could finance a few dozens of robotic missions that would cover a much wider area. The goal of sending people to mars would be having people on mars.

If we wanted to create a colony of robots for robots, there are much better targets for that then Mars. There are some limited gains for them if they want to go back to space - mining water for propellant and the possibility of aerobreaking and saving up on fuel - but even for that purpose they'd probably still be better off without having to fight against a planets gravity in the first place.

On an only slightly related note, if you meant we're better off going humanity+ and making ourselves into machines... My previous title - lord of the Hermocentric orbit - came from a private joke out of a conversation I had with someone on where is the best place in the solar system to install a server farm.

[xoxoxoBruce]

For every extra kilogram carried on a space flight, 530 kg of excess fuel are needed at lift-off. Need a better way.

[glatt]

Originally Posted by xoxoxoBruce

For every extra kilogram carried on a space flight, 530 kg of excess fuel are needed at lift-off. Need a better way.

I keep waiting for an official notice I can link to so I can brag here, but my brother just won a contest held by NASA to come up with an inventive way to build a Mars habitat that is super light to launch. His solution to your fuel problem to to just bring mylar forms in the shape of an igloo, and land on a part of Mars that has some water under the dirt. Melt the water, make mud with the martian soil, and pour it into the mylar form where it can freeze into an igloo shape. I read his paper and it sounds more technical and impressive than what I just wrote, but that's about it. Frozen mud igloos on Mars. Insulated, pressurized, and furnished on the inside of course. The main hurdle is energy once you get there. And as solar cells improve, that would have to be the answer.

[xoxoxoBruce]

That's cool! Yes energy would be a biggie on the gotta have list. Powering the pressurization and air locks, is critical. Without heat nobody would want to get naked, so wouldn't make babies fast enough to feed the colonists.

[glatt]

Originally Posted by glatt

I keep waiting for an official notice I can link to so I can brag here, but my brother just won a contest held by NASA to come up with an inventive way to build a Mars habitat that is super light to launch. His solution to your fuel problem to to just bring mylar forms in the shape of an igloo, and land on a part of Mars that has some water under the dirt. Melt the water, make mud with the martian soil, and pour it into the mylar form where it can freeze into an igloo shape. I read his paper and it sounds more technical and impressive than what I just wrote, but that's about it. Frozen mud igloos on Mars. Insulated, pressurized, and furnished on the inside of course. The main hurdle is energy once you get there. And as solar cells improve, that would have to be the answer.

It may have been official before, but now it's public.

My brother won this Mars engineering contest. His frozen mud martian igloo plan got first place.