Huge Mars Colony Eyed by SpaceX Founder Elon Musk

SPACE.com ^ | Date: 23 November 2012 Time: 07:00 AM ET | Rob Coppinger,

[BenLurkin]

In Musk's vision, the ambitious Mars settlement program would start with a pioneering group of fewer than 10 people, who would journey to the Red Planet aboard a huge reusable rocket powered by liquid oxygen and methane.

"At Mars, you can start a self-sustaining civilization and grow it into something really big," Musk told an audience at the Royal Aeronautical Society in London on Friday (Nov. 16). Musk was there to talk about his business plans, and to receive the Society’s gold medal for his contribution to the commercialization of space.

[knarf]

I say let two of those ten be zero and his fag hag.

Leave the kids here ... they're still young enough ... I think we can straighten them out.

If socialism and power is so wonderful ...

GO

Build your colony ... write your constitution, pen your EO's, make law .. eat, drink and be merry and gay.

We'll ship ice cream once a year.

[blueunicorn6]

Ehhhhh.....I been to Mars. Looks like Detroit without the Eiffel Tower.

[cripplecreek]

"At Mars, you can start a self-sustaining civilization and grow it into something really big,"

You can but only if you can produce enough to trade and you have an increasing stream of settlers.

I'm all for it. Mars is looking increasingly livable within certain parameters. Its not a total vacuum which helps a lot. Radiation levels at the surface are comparable to what astronauts on the ISS experience.

[faithhopecharity]

Just don’t let him have any dogs up there

[montag813]

There is absolutely no point to settling Mars. The Moon at least has massive reserves of Helium-3. @hat does Mars have? And it is vastly farther away.

[calex59]

While a Mars colony sounds nice, as does a moon colony, where will the water come from? Yep, you can grow vegetation inside a dome for the oxygen, and food, but you need water to do that, you also have to have some for the humans to drink.

All this may seem obvious but I have yet to see anyone explain where this water will come from. Ice on Mars, I am sure, but how much and how difficult to get to it?

[AU72]

Mars has plenty of water, you just have to have the equipment in place to get at it and separate out the H2 from the O.

[cripplecreek]

The real problem is getting there. Life on the surface is technologically much easier to deal with than the moon. You don’t need the bulky suit on mars. You don’t have a 2 week day and two week night like the moon. Radiation levels at the surface are comparable to what astronauts in low earth orbit experience. There are caves on mars that could serve as handy shelters if the entrances are covered. Its cold on mars but the day night temperature fluctuations aren’t nearly as wide as they are on the moon.

[BlueDragon]

This is going to make Marvin very angry. He doesn't like it when huge colonies on Mars, are "eyed".

[COBOL2Java]

Send Michelle. They need Moms.

[jaz.357]

Mars ain’t the kind of place to raise your kids, in fact it’s cold as hell

[cripplecreek]

And there’s no one there to raise them if you did

[WhiskeyX]

The water comes from the soil. Even if the soil does not contain significant amounts of water ice, the planet has an immense quantity of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere which would be combined with the hyrogen in the rock to produce water.

If the prospect of using such chemical means to produce large amounts of water is deemed to be too impractical, it would not be unreasonable to redirect the orbital path of a comet or water rich asteroid to impact on Mars and thereby resupply Mars with seas of water.

[cripplecreek]

I think moisture in the soil may be the big discovery they’re talking about lately. To those with no real interest it doesn’t seem like much but water in the soil would be earthshaking in science circles.

[Kolath]

Moon also has Thorium and exotic minerals for mining.

All we need are some Hortas and we’re set!!!

[douginthearmy]

What does Mars have?

It's absolute absence of liberals seems promising. I've been working on a ship in my garage ever since the pictures came back and showed no liberals in all directions.

[Secret Agent Man]

He can’t even get proper electric cars working with hundreds of millions of investor dollars.

He’s gotta walk before he can run.

[treetopsandroofs]

I prefer the Botany Bay solution.

[SunkenCiv]

Thanks BenLurkin.

NASA Not Sharing a “Historic” Find On Mars.... yet
C-Net | Novembe 21 ,2012 | Eric Mack
Posted on 11/24/2012 5:03:29 PM PST by lbryce
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/2962704/posts