Sectorgame

Sorry for my absence over the past few months. Work (and an unexpectedly resurgent social life) have eaten up large gobs of my time.

But in any case...

Since the bunch of us are sci-fi geeks (playing Freespace and all), I wonder what everyone here thinks about the prospect of colonizing Mars, the moon, and other places in the solar system in the near-term.

Near term? Unlikely.

Why? Because we're too busy causing trouble on this planet to think about causing trouble on another one.

I can see groundwork for one on Mars starting quite soon to be honest, more as a promotional thing than anything else. But I doubt we'll actually see anything resembling progress for at least 30 years, and then it'll be a tiny little research station that will house a few people for 2-3 months. An enclosed 'Dome' type base wouldn't be that hard to set up on Mars to be honest, it's more the cost of getting the parts out there in the first place.

I would offer to help with my flying Fortress of Doom, but the bloody lightning field is playing up again... It's never been the same since that Flash Gordon incident

I can see groundwork for one on Mars starting quite soon to be honest, more as a promotional thing than anything else. But I doubt we'll actually see anything resembling progress for at least 30 years, and then it'll be a tiny little research station that will house a few people for 2-3 months.

Due to orbital mechanics, exploratory crews would need enough food and supplies for at least two and a half years, round-trip. 4-6 months there, 1 yr 8 months on Mars (plenty of time to get stuff done), 4-6 months back. (Unless the mission designers decide to whip around Venus and bake the crew to shave off some mission time.)

That's hardly impossible, tho. Sending some unmanned units with nonperishable supplies ahead of the astronauts would solve that one pretty nicely.

An enclosed 'Dome' type base wouldn't be that hard to set up on Mars to be honest, it's more the cost of getting the parts out there in the first place.

I dunno. Plastics, such as kevlar or vectran, could be made there (there is plenty of carbon in the atmosphere and hydrogen in the soil as permafrost), as could glass and steel. Granted, getting the machinery there to do that is almost as problematic, but it would at least give the early colonists/explorers some measure of self-sufficiency, so they wouldn't need to continually wait for supplies from Earth.

I would offer to help with my flying Fortress of Doom, but the bloody lightning field is playing up again... It's never been the same since that Flash Gordon incident

Well, it's the thought that counts.

True, better to get what you can from Mars. I suspect you'd probably see a few probes doing geological surveys in likely areas first, and construction would be designed around available resources. You could do it in phases, which gives some time to adjust for complications.

The only hard part would be that you'd need a pretty intuitive AI to oversee the first stages, they couldn't be controlled from Earth with its signal-delay.

I'd love to see the beginnings of Terraforming, myself.

Also I'm hoping to see the new laser-guided telescope network set to be launched in 2025 or something, where they'll be able to look directly at distant planets for the first time.

haven't played FS for > or < 2 years. Does this mean I'm exempt form the "sci fi geek" tag ?

There's Dollars in the Heavens.

haven't played FS for > or < 2 years. Does this mean I'm exempt form the "sci fi geek" tag ?

Never!

Reproduction in 0 G or low gravity environments.
Discuss.

Trust you to turn it into sex

And remember, crewmembers with Dentures should never attempt Oral sex in zero-G

Reproduction in 0 G or low gravity environments.
Discuss.

Messy.

I remember I actually had a book somewhere that talked about the practical side of space colonization...including that.

The conclusion was essentially that it would be difficult or impossible to really have sex in the traditional sense of the word; no leverage...

Maybe some special hip-mounted aerosol thrusters? At least it wouldn't be hard to think of a name for them