[space] Planetfall isn't the best option.

[Shades of Eternity]

Between the following two videos I'm convinced planetfall for Mars isn't the best option.

PBS - Venus makes a great case

<br>

and

vintage space convinces me orbiting satellites might be cheaper.

<br>

What are your thoughts? #space

 

[Morrus]

Could you summarize your arguments? I'm not really able to watch half an hour of video right now.

 

[Shades of Eternity]

Surekay

1. venus has better gravity, shorter trips and we can pretend to be Lando in cloud city at a fraction of the cost of landing on mars.
2. planetfall costs less then drones, and a compromise is setting up manned satielittes that can be massed produced so our drones that land on a planet can be operated in real-time. Plus it keeps our options open for putting these elsewhere (ex. asteroid belt) as we haven't sunk all our costs into trying to land.

 

[Morrus]

I suppose the main argument for living elsewhere in the solar system (as opposed to exploring it with robots) is so that a planet-wide extinction level event (asteroid, etc.) can't end the human race. Obviously it's easier to repair even severe damage to Earth than it would ever be to terraform an alien landscape.

 

[Shades of Eternity]

I agree.

I'm posting these mainly to figure out how we, as a species should do it.

best I can tell the best options in order

1. Antarctica. While we have a few research bases, we need to make it a viable place for habitation. Because it's on the planet and it's way friendlier than anywhere off-planet. Once it becomes boring instead of dangerous, we're ready for the next stage.

I can see the option of setting up underwater colonies as well, but not sure how much political will there is.

2. Moonbase. While pretty much completely hostile to life, there is a need for a moonbase for building and testing, as well as building ship/manned sateillite yards. plus its mere hours away.

3. Now we use the man satellites to put supervisors in key locations across the solar system for quicker turnaround and testing purposes. A Venus cloud city might be more viable then a martian satellite as per the video, but non-drone planetfall just isn't feasible or cost effective.

 

[Janx]

Going to Mars in order to survive a disaster on Earth is debunked to me. It's easier to build something on earth to weather that out than it is to build on Mars, stay alive there without resupply and come back to Earth later.

But all the tech we get from trying to do Mars is what we'd need for that Earthbound shelter, or for getting farther out of Sol system.

Meanwhile, Venus is so hot, NASA had a contest for a probe/lander thingy with no electronics because it all melts or gets wrecked or scrambled or something. It's a hot mess. Mars is simple in comparison.

 

[Zardnaar]

Unless the atmosphere changes Earth is our best beat.

Even global warming at it's worst won't wipe humans out.

Even if you have to live underground using nuclear power and plants to breathe it's safer, easier than Mars or Venus.

 

[Umbran]

Even global warming at it's worst won't wipe humans out.

Global warming at its worst is Venus. If we can't survive Venus, we can't survive global warming at its worst.

 

[Zardnaar]

Global warming at its worst is Venus. If we can't survive Venus, we can't survive global warming at its worst.

It's not gonna be that bad and earth is further back than Venus.

We're probably looking at dinosaur levels, no ice caps things like that.

 

[Tyler Do'Urden]

Meanwhile, Venus is so hot, NASA had a contest for a probe/lander thingy with no electronics because it all melts or gets wrecked or scrambled or something. It's a hot mess. Mars is simple in comparison.

Venus is extremely hot on the surface; it has an atmosphere many times thicker than our own.

But at high altitudes, above the cloud cover, there's a region with climate and air pressure similar to that of Earth. Whether or not it would be possible to suspend a balloon colony there is an intriguing one.