MArs is on the same side of the asteroid belt as us. Also, believe it or not, apparently the chances are you won't actually get hit if you go through the asteroid belt, the meteors are far apart.
Life on Mars?
- Thread starter 17Larsson
- Start date
No
1 in a billion change of a collision.
I saw a programme recently which suggested that human beings could live on Titan (Saturn's biggest moon), and walk on its surface. No space suit needed - just a face mask to provide oxygen and dress warm. 
The human habitats would be simple as well, and wouldn't have to be sealed and pressurized.
It is a long way away though.
The human habitats would be simple as well, and wouldn't have to be sealed and pressurized.It is a long way away though.
And a good torchI saw a programme recently which suggested that human beings could live on Titan (Saturn's biggest moon), and walk on its surface. No space suit needed - just a face mask to provide oxygen and dress warm.
It is a long way away though.
That's exactly why we'll send machines first.
Mars is the only opportunity to go on a different planet so far and I doubt we'll forsake that idea... unless someone will invent way more advanced drive for interplanetary travel. Dream on.
That's actually awesome. Can you recall the programme?I saw a programme recently which suggested that human beings could live on Titan (Saturn's biggest moon), and walk on its surface. No space suit needed - just a face mask to provide oxygen and dress warm.
It is a long way away though.
For some reason I was under the impression that Saturn was waaay too cold to be inhabited by us, think it's something my science teacher said to me at school years ago. Man it would be so awesome if we could inhabit another world.
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Titan could be got to (by humans) with some realistic rocket advances, could still take a couple of years though. Probably still need to wear a suit on the surface, it's chilly (like -200C).
If we are to colonise the universe we not only need to overcome design issues with propulsion but also shielding or self repairing for the ship and/or master suspended animation. I think if it ever happens it will have to be considered as a one way journey with the hope that if we send enough ships out we will seed the universe with many civilisations even though many will fail/die out. If this happened the real challenge would be how each colony then replicated the process and sent their own ships out.
I think it's got to the point where humans will one day eventually colonise Mars. Now the thing I'm interested in, is who will play the first football match on Mars?
Basically the amount of fuel needed, the time needed to get there, and that the window to get to Mars and then get back from Mars is 3 years. (Earth passes between Mars and the Sun every 2 years and 2 months {note you launch well in advance of this period})
If there's life on Mars what gives humans the right to colonise another lifeforms planet and claim it as our own?
There's been many films/TV shows of aliens doing the same thing to Earth over the years and i don't recall one of those where we haven't made the invaders ugly and the bad guys.
In the (still fairly remote) chance that there's extant life on Mars, it's going to be single-cellular. Doubt we'd be treading on their toes.
Although would be funny (perhaps the wrong word...) if a virus had managed to evolve on Mars that was massively deadly to any human that ever landed there. HG Wells just had it the wrong way around.
Or find out that the microbes there are all that remains of a million year old Martian civilization that was eventually wiped out by superbugs.
That's a pretty big if. But of course, should there be a lifeform advanced enough to protest against humans taking over, we should leave them be. But again, this is a big if. It doesn't matter though... we're talking decades, possibly centuries until we can talk about taking over Mars.
Personally mate i think any lifeform in general (great or small) we should leave them be, it's their planet all said and done, a planet with any life should be given the chance to live or evolve naturally, just like our own planet was.
Maybe instead of looking colonise other planets like Mars and the distance future other planets outside the solar system, we should build our own giant space stations (or miniature worlds if you will) in habitable zones, similar to the film Elysium, so we don't interfere with the evolution of other lifeforms.
Mars would be a god-awful place to live. Average temperature -63C; virtually no atmosphere, meaning that outside the human habitat, a colonist would have to wear an elaborate spacesuit at all times, and any leak or puncture would risk a quick and ugly death; dust storms kicking up out of nowhere, reducing visibility to zero for months at a time; gravity about 38% of Earth's..
Not sure why any human being would volunteer to live there permanently. Of course terraforming might be possible, but transforming the atmosphere and climate of an entire planet? It's science fiction at the moment. And one thing that couldn't be changed is Mars's gravity. It'd be very surprising if people living their entire lives in a gravity field much lower than the human species evolved in didn't cause serious health problems.
I think the Martian bugs - if they exist - have nothing to worry about for the time being. There'll be no buyers for their undesirable piece of real estate in the near future.
Not sure why any human being would volunteer to live there permanently. Of course terraforming might be possible, but transforming the atmosphere and climate of an entire planet? It's science fiction at the moment. And one thing that couldn't be changed is Mars's gravity. It'd be very surprising if people living their entire lives in a gravity field much lower than the human species evolved in didn't cause serious health problems.
I think the Martian bugs - if they exist - have nothing to worry about for the time being. There'll be no buyers for their undesirable piece of real estate in the near future.
I'm not sure terraforming Mars is actually possible, at least not easily. There is virtually no atmosphere, Venus would be simpler