Until the first generation dies out, then we can reconquer mars with our superior strength. THEY WILL BE SO SMALL, IT WILL BE FUNNY TO US!

>>7374586
It's actually more expensive to send the best we have, since different interest groups will want to keep the best here and mass ship the scum to do mass labor with no support.

And it'll turn out like every other colonization effort.

Mars has roughly 1/3 of Earth's gravity, they'd be pathetically weak physically and the constant environmental troubles they'd face would paralyse them from ever developing much of a civilization.

>>7374602
Not that old Brittania is much better htese days.

>>7374599
Oh god, this makes me think of a Mars Earth war looking like TF2... IN SPACE!

>>7374610
The arrid red desert environment. OH GOD IT MAKES SO MUCH SENSE

>>7374607
Terraforming isn't that far away from being a reality, dude - about as far away as being able to make a colony on Mars. Gravity we can't fix, though.

Also, RED FACTION UP IN THIS BITCH.

>>7374610
Earth will be heavy weapons guy, Mars will be The Scout.

Blue Planet vs Red Planet

Due to lack of oxygen, martians would be reduced to wearing breathing gear on surface. Any civilization would have to be built underground...

I can see it now: dorf fortress... ON MARS.

>>7374623
Why does Red Faction have earthlike gravity :(

I'm a cosmonaut in the Russian Federation of Putin, and he promised me i'll go to Mars by 2020

Red Faction and Doom 3 sans THA DEMOSNZ are the most realistic portrayals of future Martian colonization and the aftermath, as far as modern video games are concerned.

Also, an example of the best and brightest on Mars.

>>7374643
Before or after Russia diverts that asteroid coming our way?

But why is the 1/3rd gravity always ignored.

>>7374639
Because of gameplay. Collapsing a bulding on somebody is no fun if it takes forever to fall.

Also, I doubt the designers did much research.

>>7374656

Programmers forget to change the "g" value for all of their physics equations.

Mars folk would have to use some sort of exoskeletons to be able to move around on earth. But they'll probably grow taller?

>>7374626

Luna colony will be the Engineer
Pluto will be the Spy

Where do the others belong?

>>7374654
I'd like to thank Russia for this.

>>7374661

It's no fun anyway if they lag-teleport out of the way, behind you, hammer you in the back, and walk off to be killed by someone else in the time it takes for the building to fall on them.

...I'm bitter about the online in Guerilla. So what.

>>7374661
It's MORE FUN! It's like always having bullet time turned on! Plus you can build all your buildings all tall and spindly.

>>7374670
Neptune will be a Diver

Holy Diver!

>>7374668

I doubt living on mars would have any lasting effect on their physiology and genes, since there would be the same basic gene pool available to the colonists as to the people back on earth, and colonizing deaths would be due more to haphazard accidents or failing to read the instructions, leading to the only real "evolution" most likely being 1) people who are naturally extremely cautious and 2) a larger proportion of rare genetic diseases compared to Earth's population.

>>7374646
Red Faction is a shitbox, and the only reason I'm glad it was made is because Red Faction: Guerrilla descended from it. Fucking brilliant game as far as console(esque, I play on PC) action games go.

In a fair world, GW would license the technology and make a 40k game where you can tear down an entire city to oust a Chaos invasion.

>>7374679
YOU'VE BEEN DOWN TOO LONG IN THE MIDNIGHT SEA!

>>7374586

You have a point that only very qualified people will be sent at first but what counts a qualified might not be considered "superhuman."

They will be sending specialists at first so a wide variety of different people (genetically) will be sent thus making eugenics rather difficult. In order to qualify for the trip you need to be able to stand long term isolation in a tin can with a handful of people, How many type A personalities do you know that can do this? Second you will need to be fit enough to maintain body mass in micro and the limited gravity of mars, body building would be too food expensive, so mainly regular exercise. Third you would need to be detail oriented, borderline anal retentive, as any mistake could cost the mission.

what am i missing on this list?

I'll be having fun beating martians to a pulp with my regular terran strength, not too mention being able to leap around like a madman.

>>7374713
Multiple skill sets. To cut down on the amount of resources needed, they'd take people with more than one skill so that in the case of accident, they don't have to ship a new physicist in from earth - Bob in engineering has a degree in it.

>>7374713
Guts, grits, and an iron will to keep going with the mission and not freak the fuck out. I know I'm a little bitch, slight mishap on the ship or in the temp build on Mars and I'd go batshit and repeat "we're gonna die" over and over until I get thrown out.

Also, Jackie Chan level resourcefulness, probably.

>>7374713
>>7374713
>>7374733
so instead of super race. More like aspergers multiple skill set peoples.

>>7374745
Yeah - the AdMech, Heavy Weapons Guy and Russians.

>>7374733

Good point, so scholarly as well, that might also help with the social isolation part as well.

Then all of a sudden, SANDWORMS!

Let's see Bob in engineering deal with those!

>>7374753

Mars sounds like an awesome place already.

>>7374759
He can't, but Jane in horticulture can.

Being smart and healthy isn't always genetic.

>>7374756
Not necessarily scholarly. I know a guy who is a fucking savant-level genius when it comes to engineering and architecture, but he scored a 105 on an IQ test and almost flunked highschool math.

>>7374759

Want?!? I want my old life back! I want to be able to sleep without hearing screaming in my dreams! I want to see the people who sent me to Mars brought to justice! But if I can't get that, I'll have to settle for killing the men who took my life away.

We were on Mars... when the Sandworms hit. My entire team was wiped out. The Sandworms! The scientists were studying them, they let them hit our team just to watch!

I woke up in a holding cell. The scientists were delighted I'd survived, now they had someone to run tests on...

>>7374802

Bob in Engineering, you're a madman! You're insane, you need help!

Bad news guys: earth-creatures born under gravity different to that of earth are born deformed/dead.

There would be no breeding on mars.

Merry cuntmas.

>>7374812

Silly man, that don't happen if we harvest the sandworm spices and become super humans.

But then again look what those things did to Bob in engineering, I'm not going near those things.

It is more likely that Martian colonists would have to be extremely pragmatic in the early years.

Also low gravity will eventually atrophy their muscles and they will be unable to visit Earth. Filthy Earthlings will have no such problems. This will have profound implications on some biological processes, such as childbirth (healthy skeletal and bone structure is crucial to be able to give birth or even carry a pregnancy to full term).

After a few generations colonists would have to resort to clever tricks in order to procreate, most likely including genetic modification, artificial stimulation, or spending a lot of time daily in centrifuges.

Cultural gap in such circumstances is imminent.

>>7374838

Are most of the problems regarding childbirth just part of the natural push of the child out of the birth canal? Because a c-section could serve quite well, if that's the case.

>>7374812
Deformed? They'll be mutant scum!

My 40k image folder lacks mutants : (

>>7374802
Fucking Cerberus, mang.

Would having lower gravity affect child birth in such a way? I can understand higher gravity somewhat as early colonists children would have too weak skeletons so it'll fuck them up.

Or would the lack of gravity cause the fetus to be deformed during development in some way ?

>>7374853
Nigga, you just went full retard.

>>7374812
while pregnant, womens have to spend 9 moths in the centrifugal gravity simulator chamber

>>7374812

Only in zero-g, mars gravity would probably be sufficient

>>7374891

Nigga, I'm an astrofizzleist, I don't got time fer figgerin when dem bitches be done shittin' niglets.

>>7374853
No, although brittle and narrow pelvis would be one of the problems, as you say, a c-section would solve that one. However, there are other considerations. To put it briefly and frankly, we know jack shit about low-g human embryology, but given everything we know about embrionic and foetal development an educated guess is possible, and that guess is - that dog won't hunt, Monsignor.

The altered physiology on Mars - and persistent exposure to low-g would have profound effects - would induce all sorts of cascades human body just wasn't designed to handle. Hormonal rollercoasters that would certainly accompany life on a low-g world would spell an end to any unplanned pregnancy. Fortunately a Martian day is of comparable length as ours, which mitigates some of those problems. If the circadian cycle was messed up in addition to everything else, it would be an even greater clusterfuck.

Either way, at the very least one would require constant artificial regulation of hormone levels and possible interventions in early embryonic stages.

We are talking about NATURAL gestation here, though. An artificial uterus and/or automated muscular stimulation, or even genetic tailoring, are not unfeasible if we are talking about Mars colonization era.

>>7374897
>>7374855
They would more likely be stillborn than "mutants", although given a definition of "mutant" you might be inadvertently right. Who is to say there wouldn't be high rates of mutation in low gravity?

>>7374960

The unfortunate part is that we don't really have any ways of accurately testing those sorts of effects even with animals, at the very least for prolonged periods of time.

Unless we plan to send a bunch of rabbits up with the next lander, with a year's worth of food, and watch them breed.

>>7374905
>astrofizzleist

This is my next d20 Modern character's profession.

>>7374982
Yep. It could just so happen that people can breed in low-g without any problems. This is just theorizing without prior evidence and with limited knowledge. Medicine is not really exact science - not in the way physics or chemistry are.

>>7374893
If they are unaccustomed to 1g and only go to the centrifuge while pregnant they wouldn't survive.

The more I think about it the more I realize that the "centrifuge" idea - the one where Martians spend part of every day in a centrifuge to stimulate the muscles - is the only feasible solution in the early colonization years. If you keep the body accustomed to 1g every day, you are at least guaranteed your body is operating at parameters it was designed for. And yes, going to the centrifuge for 9 months would be possible.

I am now imagining huge centrifugal carousels in every Martian city, filled with luxuries and commodities to keep the people occupied during their daily spin cycles. They would double as recreation centers. Or alternatively they could spend the entirety of their sleep in a centrifuge. You get your musculoskeletal stimulation AND you don't need to be awake for the hassle of the high-g. In that case the centrifuges become communal sleeping chambers. Both ideas are equally cool for a Mars setting.

Also I just realized these centrifuges would have a weird architecture. The floor on these would need to be at an inclination perpendicular to the direction of the resultant vector adding up to 1g (spin g + martian g). I can't be bothered to do the calculations, but they would be surreal as fuck. Entering and leaving the centrifuge would obviously be done by "ladders"/elevators leading from the periphery to the hub.

>>7375037

Centrifugal "hotels" as it where, where the hotel rooms are arranged in large cylindrical towers and are the barest furnishings (molded into the room, of course) where each room is on its own level of the central rod that it spins around on. When you sleep, you strap yourself into the standing bed and initiate the spin sequence, with a "wake" button in easy reach for when you wake up.

>>7375037
That way they can retain strength and get tghe boost from being in low gravity.

On mars, due to 1/3rd gravity mechs would be viable and more efficient.

>>7375272

And pointless.

>>7375285
>>And pointless.

Actually, one of the Mars rovers was supposed to be a walker. It wasn't ready in time so they sent a wheeled one.

And then the wheeled one got stuck on a rock for months.

If you're going to be exploring undeveloped and rugged terrain and you can't ride a horse or mule or elephant or something, a walker can be useful.

>>7375354

They're halfway to building a spiderdemon.

>>7375356
What the fuck?

>>7375410

The demons, Dave. You be kill by them.

>>7374602

So basically Mars will be America #2?

I'm okay with this.

building on things with a gravity well is kind of stupid really, unless we get extremely cheap space elevator tech theres almost never a point. build stuff in space instead.

>>7375558
atmospheres are nice....

>>7375582
brotip, mars doesn't have one.

Is there a point to these debates beyond depressing ourselves? You know perfectly well we're never going to advance the space programs when the money and science could be put to "better" use blowing each other up.

>>7375653
Now now, some of it will be going to abstinence-only sex education.

>>7375356
Spiderdemons and Arachnotrons have four legs.

>>7375653

Well aren't you a sodding optimist?

about the procreation/habitation bit; wouldn't it be easier to just invent mind-transfer tech and give humans syntethic bodies? we wouldn't need gravity, pressure, oxygen or biological food, and radiation wouldn't be a problem. we'd never get sick or tired and we wouldn't age. the day we build this technology human space exploration becomes truly feasible.

>>7374690

Growing up in a 1/3 g environment will have a permanent non-hereditary effect on a person's phisiology, and living anywhere in space means you're getting an abnormally large amount of radiation, so expect lots of birth defects in mars babbys, as well as a correspondingly higher incidence of useful and benign mutations.

Really, though, living on mars is a pretty shit idea. There's nothing there that can't be gotten better out in space, except a bunch of dirt to go all dorf fortress with. It's much easier to build a centrifuge setup for 1g for a sizable living space out in space than it is on a planet that already has some gravity.

Deimos would be a better place to colonize than mars, if water can be extracted from it's carbonaceous composition.

Just so its out of the way, START THE REACTOR, FREE MAAAARS

Honestly speaking even that movie was a more realistic portrayal than some of the suggestions on offer here.

People like >>7375748, carry on by all means.

>>7375653
Less than ten years ago, the US could have gone back to the Moon with existing mothballed equipment for under the price of a B52 bomber.

Also the Red/Green/Blue Mars series were pretty interesting to read regardless of technical accuracy or anything. Coyote was awesome.

>>7374812
Bad News Guy: Tests done in microgravity show that gravity has practically no effect on prenatal growth and development. Hanging in a uterus is practically zero-g anyway. In fact, if anything, gravity is a mitigating effect, it injures, not helps.

A human born and raised in zero-g might see his third century. With practically no stress on his heart, it'd just keep pumping and pumping. Of course his brain would die and he'd be an alzheimer's veggie before the end of the first one.

But we're working on that.

>>7375824
holy shit that is bad ass

>>7375815

Um, what's your point?

I think his point is that the program is all but dead in favor of socio/political bullshittery. What you're saying supports that.

>>7375866
Yes.

>>7375863
I actually read in a sci fi book (can't remember which, though I want to read it again now) that rich old fuckers would spend their retirement in orbit and thus live to be 150, and have awesome zero-g sex with professional space hookers every day.

Looked it up online and apparently this is the consensus in real life. Gravity just puts stress on the body, remove it and you live longer.

So long as you NEVER WENT BACK TO EARTH you'd be fine. But one g would shatter you like glass if you hadn't experienced it for years.

Also, zero-g sleep is awesome apparently.

>>7375653

Privatized space flight is in the works, and we might just see the first such space flight within our lifetimes, assuming the governments don't hinder it with their stranglehold on airspace.

>>7375896
If we don't do it, someone will. This is the unspoken driving force behind capitalism, and it applies to pretty much everyone.

>>7375896
You realize there has already been privatized space flight, right? I'll try looking up the first successful build, it's one with non-jettisoning fuel receptacles and it takes off like a plane rather than a rocket.

>>7375896

Already been done, there was a contest or something and two guys won it for a successful space flight.

>>7375896

OH JOY! And maybe when my grandkids are in their fifties they can actually go up in a craft!

Yeah, there's a whole subset of the Virgin coorperation called "Virgin Galactic" that's working on privatized space flights, for tourism and travel.

Boeing is working on a "Space Plane" that cruises just above the atmosphere and would cut travel times down to one fourth their usual time.

Despite what you might think, the economic recession hasn't slowed technology down appreciably.

>>7374586
Something for this thread to ponder over.

>>7375942
When your grandkids are in their fifties, they'll look like they're in their twenties, and you'll be in your nineties and look like you're in your fifties.

>>7375949
how the moon bares a striking resemblance to my acne scarred butt cheeks? Profound.

>>7375949
We bombed the moon.

>>7375824
>>7375894
Gravity is a sort of a stressor, yes. Uterus suspension is kind of a zero-g, also yes. Good points all. Also I would like to add we are all descended from sea creatures. However, unless someone really pulled off an entire human pregnancy in an orbital station, I would reserve judgement. For example:
>Tests done in microgravity show that gravity has practically no effect on prenatal growth and development.
I would like to get some hard links, if it's not a problem.

Besides, the possibility of teratogenic effects of low g is not the main problem.The real problem is women who were born, grew up, and spent their entire life at .38g. Even if their body could handle pregnancy, which is highly debatable, the distrophic muscles would wreak disaster with the hormonal imbalances.

Another thing. It is true that low g is considered to decrease the strain on the heart, but people act as if heart was the only thing that caused death. Decidedly not so. Cardiovascular system is the cause of death in roughly 50% of all deaths, and of those, only one half is directly linked to the heart proper.

And I have yet to hear a convincing argument how low g is supposed to stave off atherosclerosis, which is ultimately the leading cause of most cardiovascular-related deaths. In so much words, blood vessels degrade over time, regardless of gravity levels.

By that logic, a reliable artificial heart would increase our longevity by the very same factor, and in the age of Mars colonization, that would be more than reasonably within our reach. Or vat-grown clone hearts. Or something.

>>7375037
I don't know if all those centrifuges would be static, bound to a single city.

In a post colonial Mars where people haven't received extensive Genetic Modification and are spread across a large portion of Mars pregnant women (and pretty much everyone else) would need access to one of the centrifuges; but if they're too far away to get to them by road (or whatever transport system is in use) then the only thing to do is mount these centrifuges in large, mobile cities (which wouldn't be too hard due to the 1/3 gravity) to go and meet these people living in more rural areas.

>>7376062
Wait, I remember that people with artificial hearts have a short lifespan due to a lack of some kind of protein.

>>7375628
Actually Mars does have an atmosphere, just not a whole lot of it. But it does indeed have a thin one, which is pretty much why there's wind.

>>7376100
Oh, don't be taking modern day artificial hearts into consideration. Today's artificial "hearts" are simply awful (the first one had to be DRIVEN AROUND IN A CART everywhere the patient went), sort of a last-resort stuff.

When I said "artificial heart", I meant an ideal one - made out of durable, immuno-inert materials, able to respond to autonomic nervous system stimuli as a real heart would, etc. Sure it's a stretch, but then, so is colonies on Mars. What I am trying to say is was that any potential benefits of low-g on the cardiovascular system (not empirically proven yet, by the way) will probably be emulated without the need to resort to low-g.

>>7375628
Mars does have an atmosphere. Not a hospitable one by any means, but that's nothing decades of slave labour can't solve.

>>7376062
sadly it's your genes copping it that does the trick

>>7376204
Then we shall do mingling with our genes, and possibly create some Mars monster.

>>7376062
I may have been a bit ambitious to say that. Obviously there haven't been actual tests done on pregnant women, but everything we've tested has done completely fine in zero-g, if not better than they do at 1 g.

I'd say atherosclerosis isn't that hard to beat, we have some methods to combat it right now, it's just that most people either don't have access or don't know to get it. Better diets would help, as would decreasing physical stresses.

But you won't see me disagreeing that we need to get better artificial organs.

>>7376249
Mars elephants!

>>7374586
>They will be the mars super race.
>They will eventually just look down on us.
>We will be inferior.

So basically Cowboy Bebop?

>we eventually 2 entire cultures will arise

...Uh huh.

>>7376261
Sadly, atherosclerosis is not easy to beat. It begins in any individual sooner or later, no matter how low cholesterol levels. Cholesterol (and other lipoproteins) is, contrary to popular belief, an essential chemical gear in the machinery of the body and not just some random harmful side-effect. And besides, 70% of all cholesterol is generated internally which means no matter your diet, you can never reduce cholesterol levels beneath a certain threshold, and said threshold is quite sufficient to cause degradation of blood vessels over time.

>>7376204
If you're speaking about degradation of telomeres with every replication (which is all but proven to be the primary cause of "aging"), I agree. Another thing causing degradation of DNA with age is oxygen. Somewhere along the way our cells signed a pact with the devil (mitochondria) that installed an accessible nuclear plant in your back yard. Suddenly, cheap energy everywhere! Oh and about those byproducts, those free radicals... yeah, don't worry about those. You got sufficient enzymes to patrol and fix your DNA, right?

What I'm saying is, if you want to stop aging you have to do it on a chromosomal, or biochemical level. Simple low-g won't cut it, well, it might . You have to find a way to shield the DNA from telomere shortening and free radicals (by the latter, you can eliminate both oxygen-related hazards and adverse effects of ionizing radiation, which is a huge double whammy).

So the artificial heart thing might have actually derailed the thread and I apologize for that.

Now then, Mars.

>>7376318
I'd say that it'd increase lifespan, not make it eternal. Eventually something is going to break and you're going to die unless it's replaced. I'm just saying if you wanted to lengthen lifespan, zero-g might be one way to do it. Personally I'm more a fan of artificial replacements (For the entire circulatory system too).

But if things lag more than once thought, I may go to space for a while to prevent death while they work things out.

>>7376318

To add to this, even if low-g did slow aging, you still get regularly smacked with cosmic rays in space. So unless you're in a hull of some sort of unobtainium that is lightweight and blocks those rays entirely (think a General Products hull), your DNA will still get fragged and you see the results.

>>7376318
So we'll all turn into cyborgs, then? All praise the Omnissiah!

>>7376384
Or you could just have a ton of lead brought over from the moon and wrap your space station in that.

>>7376401

No, more like custom-trait transhumans with nanotech implants. Filter membranes in the aeorta that suck free radicals out of the blood, gene therapy for designer enzymes and traits that fix up your DNA and get shit in order for you.

>>7376401
That's basically the key to immortality though. Parts wear out, so you replace them. Preferably with better ones.

>>7376441
Same thing.

Mars humans and Adeptus Mechanicus. Related, but probably not desired.

>>7376499
Same thing when the martians begin thinking technology is magic.

>>7376568
Oh you.

>>7376593
I'm telling you dude, the goverment(s) on Earth will kill each other and Mars will be cut off! Human stupidity tries to explain how technology works once they forget. Well it doesn't have to happen, but it might!

Not talking about Mechanicus, but seriously, who else thinks Mars colony actually would become a bunch of efficient, arrogant pricks? They would live in harsh conditions and low gravity, so biotechnological and cybernetic manipulation would be preferable. They would also need to develop their own ethics of ruthless efficiency. In the event of a breach, seal off Bay 7 and suffocate some colonists that the whole colony may survive.

To solve the low-g "problem", we might be looking at anything from gene therapy, steroid shots, centrifuge treatments, to serially produced exoskeletons. Add to that the whole "unable to give normal birth" aspect (about which we don't know for sure, granted)... Remember that sex and regular procreation are a cornerstone of family, and family is the cornerstone of the modern society structure.

Finally, most early colonists would be scientists, or otherwise highly capable/intelligent people. Going to Mars isn't exactly like boarding a rickety pile of wood and canvas and setting sail westward towards the New Continent. People sent there would be the cream of Earth's crop. They would need to be healthy to endure the long way there. They would need to have more than one skill set to provide redundancy in case a vital member of the expedition dies or gets incapacitated by one of many mission hazards.

Can't we just send lots of machines that spew out Carbon to create an atmosphere and heat up the planet? Or is the planets gravity too low to actualy hold a decent atmosphere?

>>7376688
We could always terraform it dude.

Although the idea of a different social structure due to low gravity restrictions on reproduction is interesting.

>>7376710
Where would you get that carbon from?

>>7376710
Don't forget to send in germs and bacteria to mix up the atmosphere.

>>7376688
Take all of that into consideration, fast forward 200 years, and what do you get? A society evolved from initial scarcity of resoures, populated by biotech- and cybernetically enhanced vat-born people. Once you accept implants you are more open to cybernetically enhancing the brain, so they're in a perpetual network. They have probably abandoned family as a concept (for optimum efficiency, babies are created by randomizing chromosomes from a large set of "parents", possibly using a societal merit system to determine the chances of your genes making it into the next batch), and have a different society, culture, and creed to those of Earth.

Intentional Eugenics are not far off. Meanwhile, let's say Earth is run by a bunch of conservatives. Think Republican Party of Earth. Imagine Fox Earth Network News transmitting a shocking story about the newly discovered attrocity - those godless, unethical Martians have begun intentionally inducing strokes in their 2 year old children!

Then imagine Martians shrugging it off with "man, that Earth scum is retarded. Sure, the procedure has a 33% mortality rate, but the surviving children will be all the more intelligent (taking advantage of the fact brain tissue can regenerate profusely within the first 3 years. They wouldn't understand our OPTIMUM EFFICIENCY. They are, after all, the 99.9% of mankind that wasn't considered QUALITY enough to board a colony ship".

Shit. As soon as Mars becomes economically independent, wars with Earth would break out so fast it wouldn't even be funny. In fact, fast forward another 100 years and you have people fighting over colonization of Europa and Titan. Mars got there first, but Earth has more resources at their disposal.

Great. I now have a setting. I dub thee.... Technophobia.

>>7376758
Well doesn't have to be carbon, but if it has to be carbon. Why not some petrol or something.

>>7376766
Sounds like something I'd want to play, and I think there's even a vidiya game like that.

>>7376766
Badass. Sign me up.

>>7376766
i'm stealing ur idea

>>7376729
You are, of course, right. But terraforming is a long (looooong) process, and the isolated culture will have formed well before terraforming is completed.
>>7376784
If I recall correctly, the entire North pole of Mars is made up from frozen carbon dioxide. That would be quite fortunate for this particular problem.

Besides that, there's also a fortunate fact that Mars surface is largely ferrous oxyde. All we need now is a way to unleash some sort of fast-replicating, rust-eating bacteria to convert that to delicious iron AND delicious oxygen.

If that don't work, or works too slow, just divert comets at it.

>>7376798
Sounds sort of like Zone of the Enders, but not quite.

>It is too expensive to send the dumb, the unfit and the lazy.

yeah. right now.
but full scale colonization would not begin until after it is cheap enough.

Mars will be the Australia of space. Full of Convicts, unwanted irish babies, beggars, and nutbags.

they will not be allowed to play video games, and will only gain a degree of international notice when Martianodile Dundee is released in theaters. Then we will have Mars themed family style restaurants, with kitsch on the walls and fried onions.

>>7376766
Can we say "Red Scare", anyone? Seems like a rather befitting name for this idea.

>>7376798
The only things that spring to mind are Earth 2160 and Red Faction. If there is another similar game, I would LOVE to hear it.

>>7376840
Martians watch cometfall from inside their domes, drink mars-beer.

>>7376868
Wasn't there a game like.. shit.. Ground Control sounds like a situation in this game.

Bump

The concept of a rustic, backwater Mars society seems silly to me. Until we terraform the planet (and who knows how many centuries that will take), the only places people will be able to live will be highly technological domed habitats.

>>7376840
Simply adding CO2 to the thin martian atmosphere won't help, it'll just burn off and evaporate into the interplanetary medium.


The real problem with terraforming mars is not the gravity or that it doesn't have enough of this gass or that gass. Soil samples and visible water erosion prove there was a nearly earth like atmosphere at one point. The problem is the lack of a significant active magnetic dynamo at the core. The absence of which reduces atmospheric resistance to solar winds and radiation, both of which cause atmospheric degradation. It's a common misconception that gravity is the sole reason for atmospheric retention, if it were then even mercury would have an atmosphere, thin though it would be if it were to exist under that premise.

An active core is necessary for terraforming to have a shadow of a chance of being successful. Active cores like our own produce massive magnetic fields that protect the atmosphere from damage by radiation, without it, you get Mars. That being said any Mars colony would end up as domes and underground facilities to escape the multi-frequency radiation assault from the sky. On the upside, solar panels have proven to be rather efficient on Mars so power would be less of an issue. Downside would be the need for closed system life support which would have a maximum carry weight dependent on how much power, food and O2 could be produced in the system.

In short, Mars Cannot be terraformed and any colonies there will end up being little more than sprawling grounded spaceships. On the upside of it all at least it'll help us figure out how to make interstellar colony ships, so, fun times there!

Use a Martian base as a refugee base/penal colony.

Throw a couple of undesirables their way to mix things up.

>>7377094
Dude, it'd take thousands of years to strip an earth-thickness atmosphere off mars. Plenty of time as humans are concerned. And by the time it's depleted we'll probably know how to restart Mars' core, even if it's just with huge lazors.

>>7376868
I think it's called Hegemonia or something, seems to be the same story that you wrote.

>>7377107
mars becomes australia?

>>7377094
Well I think humanity could make a thriving eco system in underground facilities, protected from radiation.

>>7377094
Sounds like Venus would be a better prospect, if we had a good method for deflecting solar energy or boosting radiation emission to cool the sucker.

>>7377094
Mars's being geologically frozen does present a problem. But I have a solution!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ceres_%28dwarf_planet%29
All you need to do is mount a few dozen engines on this huge chunk of rock and park it in a tight elliptical orbit around mars. Then all you need to do is sit back and watch as the tidal stresses make up all those sleepy geologic processes.

Losing the atmosphere due to the lower gravity is still a problem, but only one that shows up over geologic time scales, so there is more than enough time to get more air, or work out a more permanent solution. Like building a huge roof.
>Also known as the "worldhouse" concept, or domes in smaller versions, paraterraforming involves the construction of a habitable enclosure on a planet which eventually grows to encompass most of the planet's usable area. The enclosure would consist of a transparent roof held one or more kilometers above the surface, pressurized with a breathable atmosphere, and anchored with tension towers and cables at regular intervals. Proponents claim worldhouses can be constructed with technology known since the 1960s.

>>7377191
Venus is the greenhouse effect gone mad, there's an atmosphere and all that. But it's also the hottest planet in our solar system, not so beautiful when you get close to it.

>>7377191
I've always been a big fan of terraforming Venus, but the whole killer atmosphere and day as long as its year are some fairly big problems to have to solve.

>>7377191
Ship acid-resistant, photosynthetic bacteria to venus.

Wait a while.

?????

PROFIT!

>>7377203
why build a big roof when you could just tow in more (frozen) atmosphere from the asteroid belt?

>>7377143

You think we could pump that much air mass into mars' atmosphere? Keeping the Martian atmosphere dense enough to support breathing life would be no mean feat. Not one I can see human's being capable of any time soon. However another problem pokes its ugly head and that's solar radiation, even if you do get the air up to snuff, that doesn't build a Ozone layer or a heavy magnetosphere necessary for life to function well. Without either you end up being bombarded by too much radiation and having to slather on bright blue SPF 5k all over your face to walk around in the cold ass weather of summer.

Ohh there's another problem, Mars sits at the outer edge of our solar system's habitable zone. Mars exists as a sort of inverse to Venus which is too damn close, but only slightly. Even if you get past the radiation and the low air desnity you then have to contenend with weather that will often make a trip to Antarctica look like a nice trip to the beach.

>>7374586
what's the worse that can happen? haven't you watched Gundam? the newtypes NEVER win!

>>7377240
I can see humans adapting to either condition though, especially with genetic engineering.

>>7377191
Venus is a poor choice, but if you could manage to lower the temps down to something earth like, it'd be able to support life much more readily.

The lower temps would likely help clear up that acid problem too, but I'm not too sure on that one...

>>7377258
Actually I think Venus would be quite nice if we could bind the gasses into the ground or something similar. I'm not so sure if Venus has that much of a magnetic field, though.

>>7377314
It's massively volcanic, which implies some kind of internal activity. In fact I'd say that's probably why it's atmosphere is so damn thick. Magnetic field keeps the sun from blasting the clouds off.

>>7377239
Well, for starters, it means you don't have to terraform the whole thing in one go. You can do it one 1000km square at a time. And if you don't actually NEED to do the whole planet, you don't have too. You just roof over the space you need to comfortable house your 500 million people and call it good.

>>7377334
Could also be the same reason why the moons of Uranus are volcanic active, atleast a few of them. It's the gravity pulling the moons, could be the sun pulling on Venus. Although I don't think it's the reason, more that Venus has a good ol' runnin' core.

>>7377314
Apparently Venus has a low power Magnetic Field.
So that's probably something that would be a problem.

>>7377253
Doubtful. Extended exposure to radiation causes mutation, mutation in a fully formed beings generally results in painful cancerous death. Though we have examples of UV resistant skin tones, without a strong planetary magnetic field you'll end up getting hit with more than a safe dose of Xrays and Gamma Rays and that will kill you eventually no matter what color your skin is.

>>7377240
I don't know where the idea that complete terraforming of an entire planet, to the point it is freely inhabitable by human beings without any support, comes from. It would be a humongous task even if there was a way to start the core, kickstart the magnetosphere, etc.

When speaking about terraforming, unless you are willing to work on a millenium-long timescale, we should not realistically aim for a breathable atmosphere. We should rather focus on making the atmospheric conditions not as catastrophic, so that it is possible, for example, to walk around in a tight suit, a scarf, and a respirator, rather than a pressurized, hermetically sealed spacesuit, and create pressurized (radiation shielded) buildings with a simple airlock, rather than domed Earth-atmosphere cities. This alone would relieve the logistics of living on mars a thousandfold.

As anon said there is all sorts of radiation entering the atmosphere that can't be easily remedied, but that's what advanced biotech is for.

>>7377158
Well slap my ass and call me a plagiaristic bitch.

>>7377374
Venus probably has a VERY active core. I read somewhere that once every few hundred million years the entire surface just melts.

>>7377426
You's too coo' to be called a plagiaristic bitch, instead I dub you a plagiaristic cool guy

>>7377203
Sound in theory, until we realize that a close orbit mass like that would be hell to put in place (Far beyond anything humans will be able to muster before we get to another star system) and that mass will have unknown and difficult to predict effects on our own orbit, the orbit of both of Mars' existing moons and the relative stability of the asteroid belt. Not to mention there is no way to assure that the resultant stresses will be enough to produce large magnetic fields. Remember that all those magnetically active moons are near the planets Saturn and Jupiter, both of which are MUCKING HUGE and have correspondingly massive Tidal forces.

>>7377231
Atmosphere compositions, once you have a situation where they can actually stick around, can vary quite a bit depending on what else you have lying about. Free oxygen is very reactive- without constant replenishment by plants, the supply we have on Earth would eventually vanish. The biggest problem- in the big old chemical reaction chambers we call atmospheres -for Venus is a lack of water. Most of it was split into its component hydrogen and oxygen, and the hydrogen escaped the planet entirely.

The day length itself isn't quite the problem you'd think, though the exact problems it would induce are rather daunting. Think "worldwide hurricane" and you'd be pretty close. Only the poles would be suitable for Earth-like life, as the equator would slowly alternate between boiling and freezing during the year-long day.

>>7377426
This is the best we can hope for from Mars in anything resembling a short time scale.

This thread makes me wish we had an astronomy board or something.

>>7377571
A board like that would be my bane. I've spent like an hour in this thread already.

>>7377600
It'd be my bane too, if you know what I mean.

>>7377571
/tg/ doubles as the astronomy board occasionally, but only when coupled with cool settings idea or writefaggotry.

Let us enjoy it until sagefags one day decide this is not /tg/ related and start saging up the thread.

>>7377627
I'm not sure I want to know. You are Anon after all and one look at /b/ or /d/ tells me anon is messed up in the head.

>>7377571
Astrologists consulting 4channers for advice on space. That's a funny thought.

>>7377689
Well that's what I've been doing so far, me wanting to educate in Astronomy or similar.

>>7377571
FUND IT

Ya know I was thinking, Anon mentioned earlier something about 'Low birth Weight" on babies born off world. I wonder if Anon was accounting for the lower gravity giving the newborn a lower 'weight'. More over does anon realize that Weight and Mass, though related are not the same? Another thought, would one recalibrate a scale that measures Lbs. to local gravity or leave it at its Earth calibrated tension?

>>7377480
Well, you raise some good points. I think that while moving a 500km rock would be a hard thing to do, it’s a whole lot easier than terraforming a planet, both in terms of time and resources. All you need are the engines (which can be the same kind you used to get people to mars) and the fuel (which you can get in abundance from any number of sources). After that is just a matter of how long of an orbit you are willing to use to get the rock to mars, and since were terraforming already, the very long view is not all that bad. You could even use solar sails to move it if you really don’t mind taking your time.

Yes, there is no assurance that this would get mars going enough to produce an earth-strength magnetic field. But it might, and it’d cost a lot less than building a prosthetic magnetic field for the planet. There’s also the added benefit that an active geology would have on kick starting the terraforming process.

But Ceres is a bit small compared to mars to be a really good tidal stressor. The rock is going to take the brunt of the force, so we’d have to take some measures to ensure that it doesn’t come apart and fall out of the sky. The story where I read about this being sued had some aliens that owed humans a favor, so they decided to try this trick using mercury. Being a murder-mystery, they story glossed over all of the hideous problems that would cause.

>>7377782
Actually I think you don't need engines at all, just a simple push in the right direction. Or solar sails.

>>7377812
Solar sails, you say? That makes me imagine pirate ships sailing through space, plundering other ships.

>>7377782
Good point, if you're terraforming Mars, you gotta have something to do with your spare time while you're waiting for the damn planet to get up air density. Might as well do some large body tidal force experiments! Of course if they went bad, I can imagine the people on mars being mighty pissed.

>>7377782
Might aswell take two moons and make them collide, you get to see what happens and just maybe a bigger moon. Or a dwarf planet.

Why must /tg/ have these delicious threads where all other boards fail?!

>>7377915
The results of that sorta thing are better understood and would largely depend on the relative velocity of the impact. Fast and you'll get a messy explosion that adds rings to the nearest planet, alla Saturn. Slower and they will more likely kinda smush together. Very slow... I have no idea but I'd love to see!

>>7377950
Cause we're awesome that's why.

read red mars for all your mars colonization interests

increase Mars' gravity by dumping the moon on it and a whole bunch of asteroids

>>7378026
Which moon?

>>7377978
Majora's Mask.

Well if we could get Ganymede away from jupiter and make it collide with Mars, perhaps we'd get a decent Earth sized planet out of it. And since Ganymede is composed mostly of silicate rock and water ice, with an iron-rich, liquid core. Mars would be quite the resourceful planet. I think.

>>7378026
I hope you don't mean our dear and necessary for us to have a stable orbit Luna, cause that'd be a terrible idea. The asteroids are ok, but you'd need a ton of em. Like 5 x 10^20 metric tons of material to get it up to earth weight.

Why the eff would one want to colonize a planet anyway, when we could get a better life in space colonies that, for example, ORBIT said planet? If we need anything from the planet, say, minerals, then we just have miners work down there and come back up during the free time.

>>7378096
>if we could get Ganymede away from jupiter and make it collide with Mars
If we could do that, that would mean we're so fucking powerful that we wouldn't NEED to live on Mars in the first place. We'd just create a Dyson ring out of Earth and be done with it.

>>7378104
>>7378065
We could make a new moon out of parts of the Earth. Make a nice ratio so that the new Moon isn't regular sized, but big enough that it has the same effect on the slightly smaller Earth.

>>7378113
Costs less, I guess.

>>7378113
if it could be terraformed, a planet with a proper atmosphere would be far safer to live on than a self contained space colony. Any number of things could go wrong, dooming hundreds, if not thousands.

>>7378096
Yeah, in like, ten thousand years when it cooled enough to set foot on it.

Then again, the Race of Man is ever patient...

>>7377915
Well, if you wanted you could always just build a moon. There's about one luna's worth of mass in the asteroid belt. All you need to do is shovel it together somehow. Of course, those are some very easily mined rocks, and I doubt earth would be too happy about losing access to them. Maybe kuiper belt objects would be better, since you are going to be needing a lot of volatiles for building the air and the oceans anyway...

>>7378124
Well then, we need some fireworks anyway.

>>7378137
Everyone would just pile in and begin digging while it's still warm, I bet.

>>7378128
TERRIBLE plan, simply terrible on a scale not previously known. Removal of that much material would be devastating to Earth. Period. Not to mention the logistical nightmare.

>>7378096
Welcome to Pandora!

>>7374630

I lold

>>7378136
Surface and orbital colonies both have their pros and cons. A mix of both would probably be the best, given that people would want somewhere nice to live until the planet is done.

>>7378096

You're talking about...breeding planets?


This...


This is the peak of human awesomeness.

>>7378247
Also good fap material, if you're gay for space.

I think we need an astronomy board.

>>7378290
We need a SCIENCE! Board.

>>7378319
We also need a "Circular Religious Arguments" board.

>>7378319
We have a science board.

>>7378319
>>>/sci/

>>7378331
Looks like we'll be having a troll board aswell then

>>7378361
>>>/b/

Now that Mars is in order, how does /tg/ suggest we take care of the task of getting to Alpha Centuari?

>>7378096
The best way to do that would be in chunks. You land a bunch of automated mining robots and mass drivers on Ganymede and start dissembling int one kiloton at a time and shooting it into mars. You could do it with huge rockets, but then you need to start worrying about all the mass you are going to lose when you smack the two rocks together, as well as issues of just tossing planetary masses around the solar system. And then there's the cost of fuel. Moving a moon out of Jupiter's gravity well in one shot is going to COST.

>>7378406

I say we fire mercury at it and see what happens.

>>7378406
Put engines on the Earth

>>7378344
Do we really?

huh. It's probably shitty though.

>>7378452
It's a text board

>>7378456
>>7378452

have an old map of Mars

>>7378496
Not very good, eh?

>>7378496
Well, ARE trapezoids necessary?

>>7378534
Of course they are!

>>7378416
Wouldn't that just be similar as to taking asteroids and sending them to Mars, then?

>>7378519
It's kinda funny how 'practical calculus' got 12 posts and 'photons' got 18, while pee drinking gets 200. Then again, we're not much better sometimes, what with the muscle girls and monster girls and all...

>>7378534
No replies so I guess not. Fuck trapezoids.

I love you /tg/
Never change

>>7375742
this motherfuckers

>>7378769
Silly transhumanist, you'd just be making copies of yourself and not actually going there.

>I can see it now: dorf fortress... ON MARS.

"...enough time to delve secure lodgings ere the surface temperature drops to ludicrous cold. Strike the mars!"

>>7378879
Beware the Mars Elephants! Results of mutation caused by the deadly solar radiation!

>>7378827
Silly normal, you honestly believe we care.

>>7379155
Good, we can't have two of you running around, per order of the government, the original is put to death.

>>7379155
>transhumanist

>calls people normals

You make me ashamed to be a singularitarian.

Shit mang, if we're going to have those martians sending rocks flying through space, we'd better keep an eye on them. Who knows what the fuck those bastards could do if they just strapped a few engines onto some asteroids. We need to establish a regulatory organization to control space travel and, potentially, deal with any threats to our survival!

>>7379232
It was a joke bro.

>>7374586
You're mildly retarded aren't you? you realize that with a lower gravity will result in people who are physically weaker than you typical Terran. Also, eugenics does not work you will have a more scientifically minded population but they will run the gamut as much as any other culture.

>>7379301

Way too close to some real people who use transhumanism as an excuse to be dicks to others.

only the smartest are sent

sounds like a starting point for the mechanicus at least

Really Martians would be people who are resourceful and not unlike every other colonist group to ever have existed the only major differences being they now are on a planet that they could die from with the slightest mishap and can never return home.

>>7379409
I'm imagining Martianboos now.
MARTIANS ARE TOTALLY SUGOI, NOT LIKE YOU BAKA TERRANS

>>7379405
except when the eggheads need to figure out how to coax something to grow. Read the Mars trilogy it deals with a lot of this and is one of most likely will become the modern classics in a few decades.

>>7379439
except they most likely won't be speaking any sort of language that resembles a single earth language at once. It would probably be a mix of everything. Also they would be pretty damn tall compared to us. Hell Lunies would be in even mores so given they don't have the nice optimism of a breathable atmosphere someday.

>>7374713
Autists?

Well done /tg/, well done. I salute your awesome.

>>7379491
a few probably most likely high functioning autists would not be out of the equation and who knows what sort of ratios will arise when a large population starts up.

>>7377240
Well, to solve the cold weather problem, why not use the tidal stressor moon to collect solar energy, and transmit it back to the planet (or put together power stations or something)? You could make it into a a sort of soft-glo sun-lamp, and use it to help heat the planet.

Funny thing is that we probably already do have the technology to get over to Mars and terraform it, it's more likely just that no one wants to invest a few billion dollars in it.

>>7379765
Try "A few hundred billion".

>>7379783
Almost the budget of the U.S. army

>>7379716
Mole Holes. Dig so goddamn deep that you are on the verge of striking the planets mantle. It might not be all that active but it's still got a few degrees to pump out. Also, greenhouse gases will help a lot. Get super heat retainers into the atmosphere and it will start to get warmer.

>>7379576
I wouldn't worry about explicit hereditary problems of such major magnitude. Autism is a neurochemical problem and as such will have clearly defined genetic risk markers. And obviously the resources on Mars would be too scarce to leave anything to chance. Any Mars babies would be in vitro AND thoroughly scanned (or even treated!) for malformed genes. Doubly so because of all the radiation concerns.

Now keep in mind I am not talking made up spaceman sci-fi technology. I am talking today's labwork, done today, we can actually do this. And in 100 years they will probably be able to make designer babies.

And if I was on Mars I'd do it in a blink. Even if it is illegal at that point, what's Earth gonna do, send police after me? Dem oxygen breathers have it easy, man, they don't know what it's like to ration your fucking decarbonilation catalysts.

>>7379765
>it's more likely just that no one wants to invest a few billion dollars in it
Change that to "a few quadrillion" and we have a deal.

>>7379716
Going with a different mix of gas in the air would help. CO2 retains heat and is less likely to float off in the lower gravity.

But if we're going the massive orbital infrastructure route, lets just build huge mirrors out of the same stuff as our solar sails. That's dirt cheap per square kilometer of material, and a lot more effective than taking the sunlight, running it through a solar collector to a huge lamp, and converting it back into light.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_mirror#Space_reflectors_for_night_illumination

>>7379834

Good luck keeping those in order, since apparently another plan is to mine asteroids in orbit.

I have a strong urge to go to Mars now, hot damn. It makes me sad that I cannot.

>>7379834
Turn those solar collectors to powerplants sir. run several large scale cables down planet-side using carbon nano-tube and you now have space elevators and power plants where you need them the most.

>>7379853
Wait a while?

>>7379867

Why even bother with that? By the time the panels are in place we should have already figured out how to remotely transfer power.

>>7379871
I think it'll take more than just a while.

>>7379878
A while is a vague span of time. Could be any amount really. But if you wait long enough, you can.

>>7379876
We already can.

>>7379853
Essence of human spirit, right here.

>>7379850
Dammit, you're right. Orbit is starting to get pretty fucking crowded.

...

OK. We'll just build the mirrors a thousand times as large and place them about 5 light-seconds out from the planet. Given the distance out in Mars's gravity well, they're probably going to have to be statites (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Statite). Then the rocks from the collection operation at Jupiter and in the belt can come in on an orbit that's a bit more off of the ecliptic so they don't hit anything. Then again, with accurate enough railguns on the launchers we probably could shoot through a constellation of mirrors without worrying about hitting anything, but it'd be safer to put a thruster block on each load just in case...

I think we're just going to have to be REALLY careful about the crumbs, you guys.

This man, Neil DeGrasse and threads like this, mostly on /tg/, are the only reasons I'm becomming an astronomer. If I could I'd be an astronaut but I don't think I'm fit to be one.

And thus, I shall dump random space images. I don't have a whole lot of them, though.

>>7379925
Really it's not as crowded as you think and really Mirrors only go so far and would take a huge amount of precision to place and build in any scale. Its great to get things stablilized but to kick it off you need a bit cruder method such as. >>7379817

>>7379925

That's why we're going to need dedicated teams for cleaning orbits up. Looks like there's going to be a lot more traffic than expected.

>>7379941

http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive/7374586/

>>7379989

>>7380003

>>7380009

>>7380017

Also, for people who were saying that Martians would be much taller than Terrans, you aren't really correct. Spaceship crews are chosen specifically for their intelligence, but they also need to be small. Their small size means they don't need as much to keep them going as larger people. They eat less, breathe less air, etc. For this very same reason the best astronaut would also be female.

So Martians would be a bunch of skinny short people, or average height on earth.

>>7380024

>>7380032

>>7380041

>>7380047

>>7380055

>>7380062

>>7380073

>>7380079
I have a few more, but does Anon want any more?

>>7379949
Actually asteroids and comets are all over the place, but if memory serves they don't get too close to the planets a whole lot.

Thread's dead, eh?

>>7380028
SPACEHOBBITS!

As we're already talking about moving moons... wouldn't a huge electromagnet built into Mars be cheaper? We can produce magnetic fields, you know.

>>7380409
It'd take shitloads of those.

Or one extra - huge. Still, I think it's better than moving planets like furniture.

Moving planets is awesome! HUEG magnets aren't!

>>7380820
BETTER THAN MOVING ROCKS AND BUILDAN MAGNETS;

dorf fortress
rock shields from radiation
????
PROFIT!!!!

But impaling planets through their cores with massive metal rods IS awesome!

>>7380897
Oh those kinds of magnets, then we shall do both!