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  • I do wish Elon would focus more on getting to Mars.
    by amberjack
  • There is basically zero chance of that happening.

    Not that this is impossible to do, but under Elons leadership it will never happen. Intelligence is non separable, you can't be smart in one area and be idiotic in another - if you are good at logical thinking, truth seeking, and problem solving this applies to everything you do in life.

    And its pretty evident with Starship it has been a collosal failure so far. They have just barely gotten it to the same functionality as the Falcon, with engines that are equivalent of putting a turbo+nitrous system on a base spec Toyota Corolla. They still have to figure out not only staying in orbit without issues to refuel, but also multiple restart attempts.

    With finances, it has been shown that Falcon launches are heavily subsidized, which is why they are cheap, and in reality, there is a lot of money spent fixing the vehicles for next launhch. Space X has no experience in multiple launches of the same vehicle without work. On Mars, you are not going to have a full factory with full engineering staff to basically fix up the Starship for next takeoff.

    All of this is compounded by the talent pool of people still willing to work for Elon, with ever sinking stock price. There is enough inertia there to keep the Falcon program going, but the mindset of everyone involved in Starship is by far not conducive to make Mars happen.

    by ActorNightly
  • I think it's already save enough. He should take the risk to be the first person.
    by MulliMulli
  • Fascinating. I first heard of this terraform idea a few years ago. Question - how do we get the ice to melt enough to have something similar to oceans?
    by mallory854
  • IIRC solar mirrors in orbit & artificial green house gases are often mentioned.
    by m4rtink
  • the only realistic chance is to find a mega iceteroid than just happens to only need a nudge to get it to crash into mars, preferably going realy real fast and into one of the poles, that then releaes enough water and heat to react most of the nasty stuff and increase the atmospheric pressure. ion engine space tugs, huge ones, and for that matter, crash anything that is possible into the poles. Pro tip, aim for the fourth planet out, #4, red one, you dont want this happening to the planet you are standing on.
    by metalman
  • Since the gravity is so different on Mars, I assume eventually born-Martians will evolve differently from earthlings. They'll be taller and thinner and require less oxygen. One day, when earthlings and Martians mate, there's going to be a new species. How cool is that?
    by mallory854
  • "Eventually" might be several million years though, and a lot of death in between.

    In evolutionary theory is there a term for plateaus of differentiation?

    by ncr100
  • Why would anyone want to move to Mars?

    It's like moving to a desert.

    by altern8
  • "The Expanse" (or: "Leviathan Wakes" by James S. A. Corey).

    They talk about "living at the bottom of the well" within our solar system (gravity well, that is). Mars effectively "divorces" from Earth (no kings / 1776, plus they need to be 100% self-sufficient), casually called "Dusters" presumably due to the Martian dust.

    People working on the asteroid-based bases (in our "Asteroid Belt") are called "Belters".

    Then also read: "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress" by Heinlein, where humanity colonizes "Luna" and have "Loonies" for relatively obvious reasons.

    Both books delve a bit into the physiological changes but also the socio-political ramifications of humanity in space, and both are _excellent_ reads!

    by ramses0
  • Build MarsX and hope they can one day get over to Earth
    by mrkeen
  • The question in my mind in 2026 is how astronauts will walk on two legs.

    Look at astronauts who exited the Gemini capsules or even the Space Shuttle orbiter, and see how they could, more or less, walk around and deal with Earth gravity.

    Now, compare the ISS expedition astronauts. They are carefully extracted by a team of strong people. They are immediately placed on medical gurneys for transport. Nobody from ISS stands upright or walks unassisted. They will suffer vertigo, no matter what.

    Furthermore, NASA restricts their activities for months afterwards. No jogging. They will be re-learning how to shower and brush their teeth! Any task that was different in microgravity will challenge them anew.

    Now a Mars journey is 6 months, one way. There will be no spinning the capsule and no constant 1G acceleration with actual technology. So without science fiction, in the real world, astronauts would face a debilitating environment of zero-G that would reduce them to toddler status at their destination.

    That, not dust, is the chief reason why Mars will continue as the domain of robots and automatons. I, for one, welcome them!

    by ButlerianJihad
  • Well, Mars has 1/3 of earth gravity so that helps.

    So for spinning the capsule, you only need say 1/5 earth gravity to be reasonably capable of walking on Mars.

    Does that help?

    by vitiral
  • It sounds not as bad as Moon dust. Realistically the Mars is about as habitable as the Moon, not habitable. So it’ll be a one-off problem.
    by bee_rider
  • Reading idlewords' blog (specifically https://idlewords.com/2025/02/the_shape_of_a_mars_mission.ht...) has convinced me that human exploration of Mars is infeasible without drastic advances in space propulsion. If the journey takes over a month it's not happening.
    by triceratops
  • Why is a flight longer than a month problem ? It will be much longer, more like half a year one way.

    On the other hand, uninterrupted (orbital) spaceflight record now stands at 437 days, so we know humans can do it.

    by m4rtink