this isn’t really a new community but i think promoting it from time to time makes sense because it has barely any subscribers and most people probably don’t know about it. so i’m promoting it here to maybe give it some fresh new views! enjoy
Edit: because i’m stupid, here’s the link: [email protected]
Won’t happen anyways. Political or financial reasons are being dwarfed by the inevitable death of the crew. Again: Two years in a tin can, touch down on mars with a frail crew, liftoff from mars which needs a lot of fuel, two years in a tin can…
And all that for what? Two humans stepping around on a dead planet? For what? We can’t even keep us alive on the planet that is our homestead - what do we do over there? Spend a trillion for some nice pics of the scenery?
Forget it. Totally and completely forget it. Will not happen.
The plan is indeed not to go there, take a nice pic, return home. The plan (at least mine and of many other people) is to go there and stay there permanently, from the first human-carrying ship onwards. Lift support systems, tools, equipment will have to be brought along of course, but keeping people alive on Mars is not more difficult than keeping them alive on the ISS (which is a closed tin can as well btw, and people routinely spend 6 months up there).
The advantage of Mars over the ISS is that settlers on mars have access to raw material resources all around them, including rock (hydrated minerals), which can be used as a source of water, carbon dioxide (and with it a source of carbon, which is the building block for a lot of materials), and metal ores. all of these can be turned into useful materials through a process known as ISRU (In-Situ Resource Utilization, in other words on-site resource usage), which can then be used to reduce imports from Earth and to grow the settlement outwards autonomously. That’s the difference to just “living in a tin can”.