"Oh, you are asking me about an actual problem with my unrealistic plans to colonize Mars? I have no idea, but I must say we plan to colonize Mars soon in order to get money from the stupid investors, lmao"
https://twitter.com/marinakoren/status/1461114697713954820
It's 30% of Earth's gravity. Astronauts would need to exercise frequently and intensely to not lose muscle and bone mass. People born on Mars would be unable to return to Earth as their vascular systems would be too weak to function in gravity that's 3x stronger than they've grown up in.
I assume that, at a certain point, residency on Mars would be functionally permanent. For the same reason we're not having a conversation about colonizing Jupiter, we wouldn't be speculating about sending people back from Mars to Earth.
Past that - and assuming you could solve the umpteen zillion other problems associated with permanent residency on a foreign planet - this would be one of the most radical experiments in speciation since domestication began. I have to assume that the first generation on Mars would have an atrocious mortality rate. But subsequent generations would adapt, just as they have adapted on Earth for the last two billion years.
I've read some sci-fi stories where they use a thick layer of water to attenuate solar radiation. But I don't think it's anywhere near a solved problem. Musk is a twit.
What was the one where the whole crew had to hide from a radiation storm behind the water tanks?
Its solved in so far as adding a large mass to the exterior of the ship can dramatically reduce the hazards of deep space travel. But its still a problem in the sense that getting large amounts of material into space is horribly expensive and difficult.
There was some proposal by the Chinese to build a kilometer long spacecraft, for instance. And if you're willing to invest that much material into a spacecraft, that opens up your options quite a bit.
Woof. A km long? I guess they have cargo ships almost that big that endure far greater pressures and stresses than a spaceship would, but holy shit that's ambitious.
Maybe some clever ways to reduce radiation effects; maybe some dumb as fuck ones! Maybe we just throw workers out there with nothing and say good luck! Maybe we find clever ways to ENHANCE radiation effects! And we get super soldiers! Tesla Troops! It's a whole new world of possibilities!
The amount of radiation, bar storms isn't so bad. Shielded habs should work to keep exposure at safe levels.
It's not perfect, since you'll probably get heightened cancer rates over a lifetime, but it's less of an issue than five other ways mars is gonna try to kill you.
I suspect that we're simply going to do the math and conclude "Humans can survive on Mars for 5-10 years before the radiation gets them, and we can send up new workers every 2-3 years, so as long as the rockets keep firing everything will be fine". And then the mass graves of Mars will form the foundation of every building on the planet within a generation.
:guts-rage: Just use piss and shit you fucking moronic manchild!
I'm as far from an expert as you can get and even I fucking know how this works.
It's stylistically designed to be that way, and we can't undo that, but we can diminish the effects of it
Musk is going to die in an explosion and they're going to make him a tech martyr
Given how many rich people have died in small-plane accidents, I really think Billionaire Self-Preservation Instinct is overrated.
