Because it's there.

I'm curious to know how you plan to stop people from going to Mars.

Do you favor an absolute dictatorship?

Gravity wells may be inconvenient. But so far, we know of nobody living
outside of one. I see no reason why we can't, but that does not mean
that there isn't one.

Besides I see it as stupid to ignore an entire planet.

Rick Brooks

From: Richard

> Because it's there.

Kennedy told us we were going to the moon because it's there. But please note that Apollo did not lead directly to lunar colonization. In fact, it didn't even lead to long-term occupancy.

> I'm curious to know how you plan to stop people from going to Mars.

Who said anything about stopping people from going to Mars? The High Frontier argument is that, in a fair competition with locations in high orbit, the surface of Mars (or indeed any celestial body) would be at a significant economic disadvantage. Such that we can expect orbital space will be economically developed in a way that Mars may never be.

> Do you favor an absolute dictatorship?

Nonsense. We're not declaring our iron will. We're speculating on the future economy beyond our planet.

> Gravity wells may be inconvenient. But so far, we know of nobody living
> outside of one.

But also nobody presently living beyond the Earth, but we don't let that stop us from speculating.

> I see no reason why we can't, but that does not mean
> that there isn't one.

We'll here's Gerard O'Neill's little list of advantages to the approach he developed:

1. Access to 24-hour-a-day sunlight. This makes solar power a consistent, economical energy source. Photovoltaic panels can convert sunlight into electrical current, and solar mirrors can concentrate it for process heat in industrial operations (such as the smelting of ore). A space-based solar concentrator the size of a football field (which could still weigh less than a car) could provide process heat equivalent to the burning of 1 million barrels of oil over 30 years.

Sunlight also drives the life-support system of the habitat, so the day/night cycle can be set to whatever is convenient. Compare this to the moon, where there is 14 days of continuous daylight, and then a 14-day-long night. Here, some alternate energy source would probably have to be used half the time.

2. Access to zero gravity. This may have a number of industrial and entertainment possibilities. Structures (such as the above-mentioned solar mirrors) could be built many times larger and flimsier in space than on a planet.

Zero G would be a liability if there were no alternative to it. Astronauts experience loss of bone mass and muscle tone after prolonged exposure to weightlessness. But most of a space habitat would be under Earth-normal gravity, although there would be easy access to regions of reduced gravity and zero G (perhaps for personal flight). With planets, on the other hand, you have to take the gravity that's there, and it's often the wrong kind of gravity to keep us healthy. Lunarians or Martians would probably not be able to visit the Earth (nor accelerate at 1 G).

3. Location near the top of Earth's gravity well. We here on Earth are the "gravitationally disadvantaged". We are at the bottom of a pit 6,400 km (4,000 miles) deep. This is what makes space launches from the surface so difficult and expensive. Settlers near the top of the gravity well would be ideally situated for departures to points beyond.

4. Control of the environment. The weather and other aspects of the surroundings would be those of the inhabitants' choosing. Agriculture in space will benefit from weather control (fresh fruits and vegetables year-round!) and the absence of pests.

5. Mobile territories. Although the first generation of space habitats will doubtless reside in High Earth Orbit, there's no reason why space settlers couldn't attach engines to their habitats, and over the course of months or years gradually change their orbit to whatever solar system location they found preferable.

6. Long-term expansion of the land area available to the human race. Let's be optimistic and assume that Mars could be made totally Earth-like in the near-term. This would basically double the land area available to humanity, meaning problem solved...until the population doubles again. Right now, that is happening roughly every 40 years. By contrast, if we were to conservatively limit ourselves to using only the resources of the asteroid belt, we could build, in the form of space habitats, 3,000 times the livable surface area of the Earth. This makes space settlement a long-term solution.

> Besides I see it as stupid to ignore an entire planet.

Ignore it from a scientific standpoint? Absolutely. But that doesn't mean that Mars is going to be economically important. Also, a few planetary scientists investigating certain aspects of Mars does not necessary or inevitably lead to mass colonization by people from all walks of life. That's more apt to happen wherever significant economic opportunities lay.

Regards,

Mike Combs

On Dec 12, 2008, at 1:17 AM, Richard wrote:

> Because it's there.
>
> I'm curious to know how you plan to stop people from going to Mars.
>

Nobody plans to stop it, and I'm sure people will go there. But the
economics do not favor living there in large numbers.

> Do you favor an absolute dictatorship?
>

You must be thinking of somebody else.

> Gravity wells may be inconvenient. But so far, we know of nobody
> living
> outside of one.
>

Unless you count living for months at a time on ISS. We also know of
nobody living off the Earth at all. That doesn't mean it won't happen
eventually.

> Besides I see it as stupid to ignore an entire planet.
>

Nobody's suggesting we ignore it. We're only suggesting that people
won't find it advantageous to actually live there, and the planetary
chauvinism that makes some of us currently think it is a good idea is
only a side-effect of our current experience living on Earth.

Best,
- Joe

On 12/12/08, Richard wrote:
(...)
> I'm curious to know how you plan to stop people from going to Mars.
(...)

I am not aware of anyone here planning to "stop people from going to
Mars". As a matter of fact, I think that the near-consensus here is
that there will be people living both in space habitats as well as
planetary surfaces.

Maybe you misinterpreted another common point of view here: we think
that space habitats are *so* more efficient than planets under a
series of metrics (energy, transportation, unlimited habitable
surface. etc) that in the long run the vast majority of people will
live in orbital colonies.

From: Lucio de Souza Coelho

> Maybe you misinterpreted another common point of view here: we think
> that space habitats are *so* more efficient than planets under a
> series of metrics (energy, transportation, unlimited habitable
> surface. etc) that in the long run the vast majority of people will
> live in orbital colonies.
Quite so. In a distant future where, due to the lack of even long-term limits to growth, there are hundreds of trillions of human beings living in various orbits throughout the Solar System, and 1 billion people living on Mars, a person might be forgiven for saying, "Hardly anybody lives on planets".

Regards,

Mike Combs

Kennedy said "because it's there", but he was also repeating Sir
Edmund Hillary's famous reason for climbing mount Everest.

LOL! We cannot even keep people from climbing that one with many
warring countries at it's foothills.

Several hundred climb Everest & K2, just to die, EACH & EVERY YEAR.

Give them Luna again, or Mars, and we will not be able to stop them
there either.

Just think of it: the Solar system's largest volcano cone; 24
kilometers tall, and 500km wide! They will scale that, and crawl over
the Tharsis Ridge like ants at a picnic.

Fascinating fact: Martian atmospheric pressure at ground mean along
its' equator is roughly equivalent to that on the peak of Everest.

--- In spacesettlers@yahoogroups.com, "Richard"
>
> Because it's there.
>
> I'm curious to know how you plan to stop people from going to Mars.
>
> Do you favor an absolute dictatorship?
>
> Gravity wells may be inconvenient. But so far, we know of nobody
living
> outside of one. I see no reason why we can't, but that does not
mean

2008/12/13 Kevin Burgess :
> Fascinating fact: Martian atmospheric pressure at ground mean along
> its' equator is roughly equivalent to that on the peak of Everest.

No, nothing like.

The atmospheric pressure on Mars is about the same as that of the
Earth at about 100,000 feet; it's under 1% that of Earth sea level,
more than 30x less that at the top of Everest.

Everest is survivable for short periods without a pressure suit, but
Mars definitely isn't for more than a few tens of seconds; for all
practical physiological purposes, Mars is a vacuum.

--
-Ian Woollard

We live in an imperfectly imperfect world. Life in a perfectly
imperfect world would be much better.

Essentially, any exposed skin on Mars would instantly"freeze-dry" since water cannot exist as a liquid at such a low pressure, so anybody venturing out would require a pressure suit. This is one reason why certain people advocate repeatedly spending trillions of dollars terraforming Mars in order to increase the atmospheric pressure to a level where water canexist as a liquid. However, as has been stated on this list before,Mars used to have a higher pressure and it lost it when it's weak gravityand lack of a magnetosphere left it highly vulnerable to the solar winds. Mars still has weak gravity and no magnetosphere, so any terraformed atmosphere would once again be blown away. Space suits will simply be an inconvenienttruth onMars, but that won't keepME from going.

Douglas May

From: Ian Woollard
To: spacesettlers@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Sunday, December 14, 2008 11:44:14 AM
Subject: Re: [spacesettlers] Re: A reason for going to Mars

2008/12/13 Kevin Burgess :
> Fascinating fact: Martian atmospheric pressure at ground mean along
> its' equator is roughly equivalent to that on the peak of Everest.

No, nothing like.

The atmospheric pressure on Mars is about the same as that of the
Earth at about 100,000 feet; it's under 1% that of Earth sea level,
more than 30x less that at the top of Everest.

Everest is survivable for short periods without a pressure suit, but
Mars definitely isn't for more than a few tens of seconds; for all
practical physiological purposes, Mars is a vacuum.

--
-Ian Woollard

We live in an imperfectly imperfect world. Life in a perfectly
imperfect world would be much better.

On Sun, Dec 14, 2008 at 9:29 PM, DOUG MAY wrote:
(...)
> However, as has been stated on this list before, Mars used to have a
> higher pressure and it lost it when it's weak gravity and lack of a
> magnetosphere left it highly vulnerable to the solar winds. Mars still has
> weak gravity and no magnetosphere, so any terraformed atmosphere would once
> again be blown away.
(...)

I've heard that argumentation again and again but it is based on the
false (and even naive) assumption that Mars will loose a new
atmosphere "instantly". In fact, Mars lost its original atmosphere
over BILLIONS of years, and it will take a similar amount of time to
loose any artificial atmosphere that is implanted there. So, that will
be a fixed, eternal atmosphere as far as humans are concerned.

Indeed, a terraformed Mars will probably last longer than Earth, since
our planet will be uninhabitable in a billion years or so due to the
increasingly hotter sun.

Disclaimer: just remembering that I am pro-space settlement, but it
really doesn't help to spread that fallacious meme of "Mars can't
sustain an atmosphere"...

On 14/12/2008, DOUG MAY wrote:
> Essentially, any exposed skin on Mars would instantly "freeze-dry" since
> water cannot exist as a liquid at such a low pressure, so anybody venturing
> out would require a pressure suit.

Well. there are such things as 'skin suits'- mechanical pressure suits
that expose skin directly to vacuum. They keep the pressure up within
the body through a tight mesh over the top. My understanding is that
skin doesn't freeze dry in that situation, skin is surprisingly robust
in fact, and if you feel cold you won't sweat much anyway.

> Douglas May

--
-Ian Woollard

We live in an imperfectly imperfect world. Life in a perfectly
imperfect world would be much better.

On what may be an off-tangent point:

What would it take to generate a magnetic field sufficient to protect a planet's surface?

No doubt it is a lot of energy, but would decrease with distance from the sun.

--- On Sun, 12/14/08, DOUG MAY wrote:

From: DOUG MAY
Subject: Re: [spacesettlers] Re: A reason for going to Mars
To: spacesettlers@yahoogroups.com
Date: Sunday, December 14, 2008, 6:29 PM

Essentially, any exposed skin on Mars would instantly"freeze- dry" since water cannot exist as a liquid at such a low pressure, so anybody venturing out would require a pressure suit. This is one reason why certain people advocate repeatedly spending trillions of dollars terraforming Mars in order to increase the atmospheric pressure to a level where water canexist as a liquid. However, as has been stated on this list before,Mars used to have a higher pressure and it lost it when it's weak gravityand lack of a magnetosphere left it highly vulnerable to the solar winds. Mars still has weak gravity and no magnetosphere, so any terraformed atmosphere would once again be blown away. Space suits will simply be an inconvenient truth onMars, but that won't keepME from going.

Douglas May

____________ _________ _________ __
From: Ian Woollard
To: spacesettlers@ yahoogroups. com
Sent: Sunday, December 14, 2008 11:44:14 AM
Subject: Re: [spacesettlers] Re: A reason for going to Mars

2008/12/13 Kevin Burgess :
> Fascinating fact: Martian atmospheric pressure at ground mean along
> its' equator is roughly equivalent to that on the peak of Everest.

No, nothing like.

The atmospheric pressure on Mars is about the same as that of the
Earth at about 100,000 feet; it's under 1% that of Earth sea level,
more than 30x less that at the top of Everest.

Everest is survivable for short periods without a pressure suit, but
Mars definitely isn't for more than a few tens of seconds; for all
practical physiological purposes, Mars is a vacuum.

--
-Ian Woollard

We live in an imperfectly imperfect world. Life in a perfectly
imperfect world would be much better.

> --- On Sun, 12/14/08, DOUG MAY wrote:
>
> Mars still has weak gravity and no magnetosphere, so any terraformed
> atmosphere would once again be blown away.

While it is true that a terraformed atmosphere would not last in the current
circumstances I would beg to differ with you on a magnetosphere. Although the
current magnetosphere is very weak there is one. It is also spotty and is of
various strengths at different locations and holds an atmosphere of differing
pressures.

> Space suits will simply be an inconvenient truth on Mars, but that won't
> keep ME from going.
>
> Douglas May

It is true that space suits will be around on Mars for a long time for many
reasons. Much the same reasons why they would be around on any space
settlement.

In a message dated 12/14/2008 7:40:28 PM Eastern Standard Time,
happygallimore@... writes:

> On what may be an off-tangent point: What would it take to generate a
> magnetic field sufficient to protect a planet's surface?
>
> No doubt it is a lot of energy, but would decrease with distance from the
> sun.

The best way to recreate Mars magnetic field would be to find it a bigger
moon to supplement the tidal forces created by the current moons and to move
Phobos into the same orbit as Demois and combine the two when Demois is mined for
it's water and other volitials.
Ceres is about the right size if placed in orbit about 160% as large as the
orbit of Demois, and traveling at about the same speed.
The combined tidal forces may recreate the forces necessary to reenergize the
core of Mars and recreate the magnetic field to a force that would be strong
enough to hold a decent atmosphere.

John Wayne Smith, CEO
1000 Planets, Inc.
http://www.1000Planets.com

**************

More like %4 Earth sea-level, at Valles Marinaris, but not
impossible. It's cold enough to freeze a human solid most of each Sol
night, but not nearly as difficult to overcome as the raw vaccum of
space.

I'd take Mars over the ISS any day murphy rules, where I'd have
minutes to their seconds.

Martian explorers & settlers will need pressure suits in daylight,
and partial hard shell surface suits for sunless evenings, and only
short duration then.

I've been dealing with those issues for nearly a decade now, in MDRS
& FMARS SIM, and we're training hard for the even harder harsh-
reality of Mars.

The greatest survival threat on Mars may actually be the acidic &
corrosive regolith dust, which will get into everything mechanical.

Ian,
If you're interested, the Mars Society Engineering Team is always
looking for volunteer talent.

BTW: Everest' peak is only survivable for short durations, after
weeks of aclimitization. Even then, the top is littered with the
bodies of dead climbers, to the point that the many cadavers are now
considered a biohazard pollution waste there & on K2.

--- In spacesettlers@yahoogroups.com, "Ian Woollard"
wrote:
>
> 2008/12/13 Kevin Burgess :
> > Fascinating fact: Martian atmospheric pressure at ground mean
along

Yep, the golf clubhouse will be pressurized, and our drive swings
will be limited by half-shell surface suits. That's OK, since our
golf carts will be solar powered, and not capable of long drives
either.

;-)

See you at the first Tee!

--- In spacesettlers@yahoogroups.com, DOUG MAY wrote:
>
> Essentially, any exposed skin on Mars would instantly"freeze-dry"
since water cannot exist as a liquid at such a low pressure, so
anybody venturing out would require a pressure suit. This is one
reason why certain people advocate repeatedly spending trillions of
dollars terraforming Mars in order to increase the atmospheric
pressure to a level where water canexist as a liquid. However, as
has been stated on this list before,Mars used to have a higher
pressure and it lost it when it's weak gravityand lack of a
magnetosphere left it highly vulnerable to the solar winds. Mars
still has weak gravity and no magnetosphere, so any terraformed
atmosphere would once again be blown away. Space suits will simply be
an inconvenienttruth onMars, but that won't keepME from going.
>
> Douglas May
>
> From: Ian Woollard
> To: spacesettlers@...m
> Sent: Sunday, December 14, 2008 11:44:14 AM
> Subject: Re: [spacesettlers] Re: A reason for going to Mars
>
> 2008/12/13 Kevin Burgess :
> > Fascinating fact: Martian atmospheric pressure at ground mean
along

Yes. Mars Society Australia have fielded a few working models. The
technical difficulties will be resolved long before the Chinese get
there, and longer still before western governments land boots & flags.

The sweat is diverted to grey-water collection, like the still-suits
of Dune. Not nearly as efficient as the Sci-Fi versions yet, but the
real thing is pretty nifty.

The mockups were done in a cool cobalt blue. The only thing we found
wrong with them was the silly motorcycle helmets they chose for
simulation.

Mission durations of over 2 years might find skins NOT fitting very
well as exercise & diet (or lack there of) change body sizes.

IOW: We're still working on it...

--- In spacesettlers@yahoogroups.com, "Ian Woollard"
wrote:
>
> Well. there are such things as 'skin suits'- mechanical pressure
suits
> that expose skin directly to vacuum. They keep the pressure up
within
> the body through a tight mesh over the top. My understanding is that
> skin doesn't freeze dry in that situation, skin is surprisingly
robust

We're not sure, but there have been several models suggested by
geophysisists. There was talk of 'restarting' the magnetosphere of
Mars too, but again they could not agree on how much iron would be
needed to spin it's core up, or if it was even molten (fluids in
motion being easier to influence).

Besides the Tin Can folks (that's us O'Neill fans) would probably
rather put good iron asteroids to better use in fabricating orbital
cities & industry.

The idea came up when it was suggested the Hellas Basin impact
probably slowed down or shut down the proto Martian magnetic core.

Who knows? What's a few billion years between rocks...

--- In spacesettlers@yahoogroups.com, Matt Gallimore
wrote:
>
> On what may be an off-tangent point:
>
> What would it take to generate a magnetic field sufficient to
protect a planet's surface?
>
> No doubt it is a lot of energy, but would decrease with distance
from the sun.
>
> --- On Sun, 12/14/08, DOUG MAY wrote:
>
> From: DOUG MAY
> Subject: Re: [spacesettlers] Re: A reason for going to Mars
> To: spacesettlers@yahoogroups.com
> Date: Sunday, December 14, 2008, 6:29 PM
>
> Essentially, any exposed skin on Mars would instantly"freeze- dry"
since water cannot exist as a liquid at such a low pressure, so
anybody venturing out would require a pressure suit. This is one
reason why certain people advocate repeatedly spending trillions of
dollars terraforming Mars in order to increase the atmospheric
pressure to a level where water canexist as a liquid. However, as
has been stated on this list before,Mars used to have a higher
pressure and it lost it when it's weak gravityand lack of a
magnetosphere left it highly vulnerable to the solar winds. Mars
still has weak gravity and no magnetosphere, so any terraformed
atmosphere would once again be blown away. Space suits will simply be
an inconvenient truth onMars, but that won't keepME from going.
>
> Douglas May
>
> ____________ _________ _________ __
> From: Ian Woollard
> To: spacesettlers@ yahoogroups. com
> Sent: Sunday, December 14, 2008 11:44:14 AM
> Subject: Re: [spacesettlers] Re: A reason for going to Mars
>
> 2008/12/13 Kevin Burgess :
> > Fascinating fact: Martian atmospheric pressure at ground mean
along

Thanks John. Did I read that in 1000Planets, or somewhere else?

The math should be easy on what it would take to park Ceres, or
another large planetoid there. Any reason it can't get into a closer
orbit?

If we're going to be doing a lot of commuting in & out of Mars, it
would be nice to have a decent sized O'Niell city orbiting, to
shuttle raw materials & other commerce between Earth and Mars.

--- In spacesettlers@yahoogroups.com, jwsmith42000@... wrote:
>
> > --- On Sun, 12/14/08, DOUG MAY wrote:
> >
> > Mars still has weak gravity and no magnetosphere, so any
terraformed
> > atmosphere would once again be blown away.
>
> While it is true that a terraformed atmosphere would not last in
the current
> circumstances I would beg to differ with you on a magnetosphere.
Although the
> current magnetosphere is very weak there is one. It is also spotty
and is of
> various strengths at different locations and holds an atmosphere of
differing
> pressures.
>
> > Space suits will simply be an inconvenient truth on Mars, but
that won't
> > keep ME from going.
> >
> > Douglas May
>
> It is true that space suits will be around on Mars for a long time
for many
> reasons. Much the same reasons why they would be around on any
space
> settlement.
>
> In a message dated 12/14/2008 7:40:28 PM Eastern Standard Time,
> happygallimore@... writes:
>
> > On what may be an off-tangent point: What would it take to
generate a
> > magnetic field sufficient to protect a planet's surface?
> >
> > No doubt it is a lot of energy, but would decrease with distance
from the
> > sun.
>
> The best way to recreate Mars magnetic field would be to find it a
bigger
> moon to supplement the tidal forces created by the current moons
and to move
> Phobos into the same orbit as Demois and combine the two when
Demois is mined for
> it's water and other volitials.
> Ceres is about the right size if placed in orbit about 160% as
large as the
> orbit of Demois, and traveling at about the same speed.
> The combined tidal forces may recreate the forces necessary to
reenergize the
> core of Mars and recreate the magnetic field to a force that would
be strong
> enough to hold a decent atmosphere.
>
> John Wayne Smith, CEO
> 1000 Planets, Inc.
> http://www.1000Planets.com
>
> **************
> (http://www.aol.com/?optin=new-
dp&icid=aolcom40vanity&ncid=emlcntaolcom00000010)

On 15/12/2008, Kevin Burgess wrote:
> More like %4 Earth sea-level, at Valles Marinaris, but not
> impossible.

The wikipedia quotes the highest pressures to be 1,155 Pa. This is
only just over 1% Earth sea level. Do you have a reference that it is
that high? It seems highly unlikely given the scale height of the
atmosphere.

> It's cold enough to freeze a human solid most of each Sol
> night, but not nearly as difficult to overcome as the raw vaccum of
> space.

"all wrapped up snug and warm, and no playing with any naughty
bug-eyed monsters" - Eddy

> I'd take Mars over the ISS any day murphy rules, where I'd have
> minutes to their seconds.

No, without life support apparatus you'd be gone in ~12 seconds too-
you can't hold your breath without bursting your lungs (which would
kill you) and the pressure is below the boiling point of water at body
temperature. The lungs fill with water vapour, and so oxygen masks
don't help. (Mars is above the "Armstrong limit"-
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armstrong_Limit).

The pressure is low enough that you need CAPS to survive on Mars.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_adaptation_to_space)
--
-Ian Woollard

We live in an imperfectly imperfect world. Life in a perfectly
imperfect world would be much better.

From: Kevin Burgess burgesskj@...
Sent: Mon, 15 Dec 2008 5:12 am

>Thanks John. Did I read that in 1000Planets, or somewhere else?

>The math should be easy on what it would take to park Ceres, or
>another large planetoid there. Any reason it can't get into a closer
>orbit?

My reasoning, and I could be wrong, is to have a continious changing set of tidal forces applied to the martain core.
I think that if the suggested new moon take 6 to 7 days to orbit Mars it would be better than 5 days or less.

I do not have the training or facilities to do much more than a guess but as much as I have studied the idea that is the best I can do

>
>If we're going to be doing a lot of commuting in & out of Mars, it
>would be nice to have a decent sized O'Niell city orbiting, to
>shuttle raw materials & other commerce between Earth and Mars.

I agree and that would create still more tidal forces to add to the mix. I would place it outside the orbit of Demois but not more than 1000 miles.

John Wayne

--- In spacesettlers@yahoogroups.com, "Lucio de Souza Coelho"
wrote:
>
> On 12/12/08, Richard wrote:
> (...)
> > I'm curious to know how you plan to stop people from going to Mars.
> (...)
>
> I am not aware of anyone here planning to "stop people from going to
> Mars". As a matter of fact, I think that the near-consensus here is
> that there will be people living both in space habitats as well as
> planetary surfaces.
>
> Maybe you misinterpreted another common point of view here: we think
> that space habitats are *so* more efficient than planets under a
> series of metrics (energy, transportation, unlimited habitable
> surface. etc) that in the long run the vast majority of people will
> live in orbital colonies.
>
My point of view is that we have to try both space habitats and planets
to see if both will work. So far, we only know for sure that humans
can exist on Earth.

Personally, I think we should start with the Moon and build nearby
habitats with lunar material. If things go wrong, help can get there
in days.

All talk of Mars or asteroid habitats is premature. Remember Finagle:
If something can go wrong, it will! I'd rather have it go wrong
relatively close rather than so far out that it can disappear behind
the sun and out of touch for weeks.

Maybe space habitats in the asteriod belt are better than trying to
live on Mars. But I seriously doubt that any of us will live to see
even a part of the answer.

My apologies for not answering sooner, but eye trouble limits my
computer time.

Rick Brooks

Rick! If we build first 10,000 population colony on moon
like you're suggesting I can only see a dead-end
for followup just like happened with Apollo missions.
If instead we build first colony in or adjacent to a Mars
moon the followup will be construction of duplicate
colonies which will eventually be home to billions.

Sailor.barsoom/Mike Combs: Wouldn't Deimos be a
little more attractive than Phobos for 1st colony?
It's not so deep in Mars's gravity well plusmay not
experience as much interuption of sunlight/power supply
from Mars's shadow. Your 12-16 posts on Phobos's
potential has converted me from that "Asteroid-Belt-
First" philosophy I used to post in this group ~2002.

Hallelujia Praise Spacesettlers!!! Ed S.

---

Schonert Edward wrote:

> Rick! If we build first 10,000 population colony on moon
> like you're suggesting I can only see a dead-end
> for followup just like happened with Apollo missions.

I can't agree with that. The Moon is a rich source of materials, and
the only such source of materials in cislunar space that isn't at the
bottom of a deep gravity well. It's going to be a major exporter of
oxygen, iron, magnesium, calcium, nickel, titanium, etc. It's also
going to be a major tourist destination for centuries to come. A 10K
population would be about right to run all those mining, refining,
export, and tourism operations.

> If instead we build first colony in or adjacent to a Mars
> moon the followup will be construction of duplicate
> colonies which will eventually be home to billions.

That'll be even more the case for cislunar colonies.

Best,
- Joe