The question in my mind in 2026 is how astronauts will walk on two legs.
Look at astronauts who exited the Gemini capsules or even the Space Shuttle orbiter, and see how they could, more or less, walk around and deal with Earth gravity.
Now, compare the ISS expedition astronauts. They are carefully extracted by a team of strong people. They are immediately placed on medical gurneys for transport. Nobody from ISS stands upright or walks unassisted. They will suffer vertigo, no matter what.
Furthermore, NASA restricts their activities for months afterwards. No jogging. They will be re-learning how to shower and brush their teeth! Any task that was different in microgravity will challenge them anew.
Now a Mars journey is 6 months, one way. There will be no spinning the capsule and no constant 1G acceleration with actual technology. So without science fiction, in the real world, astronauts would face a debilitating environment of zero-G that would reduce them to toddler status at their destination.
That, not dust, is the chief reason why Mars will continue as the domain of robots and automatons. I, for one, welcome them!
Reading idlewords' blog (specifically https://idlewords.com/2025/02/the_shape_of_a_mars_mission.ht...) has convinced me that human exploration of Mars is infeasible without drastic advances in space propulsion. If the journey takes over a month it's not happening.
Fascinating. I first heard of this terraform idea a few years ago. Question - how do we get the ice to melt enough to have something similar to oceans?
Since the gravity is so different on Mars, I assume eventually born-Martians will evolve differently from earthlings. They'll be taller and thinner and require less oxygen. One day, when earthlings and Martians mate, there's going to be a new species. How cool is that?
the only realistic chance is to find a mega iceteroid than just happens to only need a nudge to get it to crash into mars, preferably going realy real fast and into one of the poles, that then releaes enough water and heat to react most of the nasty stuff and increase the atmospheric pressure.
ion engine space tugs, huge ones, and for that matter, crash anything that is possible into the poles.
Pro tip, aim for the fourth planet out, #4, red one, you dont want this happening to the planet you are standing on.
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[ 0.23 ms ] story [ 13.6 ms ] threadLook at astronauts who exited the Gemini capsules or even the Space Shuttle orbiter, and see how they could, more or less, walk around and deal with Earth gravity.
Now, compare the ISS expedition astronauts. They are carefully extracted by a team of strong people. They are immediately placed on medical gurneys for transport. Nobody from ISS stands upright or walks unassisted. They will suffer vertigo, no matter what.
Furthermore, NASA restricts their activities for months afterwards. No jogging. They will be re-learning how to shower and brush their teeth! Any task that was different in microgravity will challenge them anew.
Now a Mars journey is 6 months, one way. There will be no spinning the capsule and no constant 1G acceleration with actual technology. So without science fiction, in the real world, astronauts would face a debilitating environment of zero-G that would reduce them to toddler status at their destination.
That, not dust, is the chief reason why Mars will continue as the domain of robots and automatons. I, for one, welcome them!