No no, you got it all wrong: all the billionaires are right, yes we should go to mars, it's perfectly save and they should lead their chosen people to their to-be-built kingdom. What part of this plan do you not understand? Let Elon lead the charge, Darwin Awards will have a field day.
Respectfully, this is one of the many starry-eyed "we seek to achieve the impossible" posts in these comments that refuses to address the practical realities. You're not going to erase radiation exposure with a motivational speech.
Radiation exposure will be easily survivable in the short term. Astronauts have already lived in space for longer than a Mars flight, and Mars explorers will have, at a minimum, highly shielded sleep areas during the trip. With a VR setup, spending a lot of time there might not be too bad...
Spaceflight oriented radiation shielding will also improve over time.
On Mars, radiation won't be much of a concern at all, since all living quarters will be underground, either under piled regolith, or deeper underground.
There are plenty of people who would trade twenty or thirty years of their Earth life for a final five or ten as a pioneer on (or in) Mars. I probably wouldn’t volunteer yet, but once I’m in my 60’s? Maybe… It’s one way of eliminating anxiety around living too long with dementia.
Sure, but there are political considerations as well. It's a lot harder to sell sending a 30 year old to die in five years on Mars than it is to sell a 60 year old doing the same.
As to 'shielding', there's plenty on Mars. It's called dirt and rock. There's a high likelihood that caves are available, for one thing. In the short term, other needs may be satisfied via shipment from Earth. The initial colony can be scouted, supplied, and constructed using unmanned missions.
Longer term habitation will involve Martian agriculture. Microbes have already been developed to transform Martian soil into an arable form.
Back to the radiation question, after some quick research it's clear that as long as the living quarters are shielded (as above), a few hours of exposure a day are very low risk. The average dose rate at the Martian surface is well under 220 micrograys per day, and the levels only very rarely exceed that value. If one were out on the surface for five hours a day, the yearly dose would be less than that allowed for radiation workers in the USA. That level is considered negligible for increased cancers and other health problems.
Given that survival is assured, what's there is a new world, virtually unlimited resources, and unlimited potential.
It was “physically impossible with current technology for humans to survive a trip” to the Moon when the space race kicked off, too. The whole POINT of the space race was inventing the technology to solve those problems.
Space exploration nay-sayers really are the lamest people imaginable.
> It was “physically impossible with current technology for humans to survive a trip” to the Moon when the space race kicked off, too.
No, it wasn't. For one thing, the moon is a heck of a lot closer than Mars.
> The whole POINT of the space race was inventing the technology to solve those problems.
The point of the space race was to demonstrate technological superiority, especially with regard to missile capabilities, in the Cold War.
Calling people "lame" isn't going to address the realities of space travel, from the destructive effects of radiation on pregnancies to the physical and cognitive decline from living in a non-Earth environment for extended periods of time, effects that have been measured in astronauts who spent time on the ISS. Sending humans to Mars would practically be a death sentence for that subset of the species.
Humans on Mars will live in radiation shielded environments, and people have already endured longer space radiation exposure than received during the trip. At least the astronaut's sleeping habitat will be heavily radiation shielded on board the spacecraft.
Nuclear interplanetary craft will also shorten trip times appreciably within a decade or so.
Humans have survived in orbit, exposed to full-strength cosmic rays, for much longer than for the trip to Mars. Improved shielding will become practical as nuclear powered spacecraft come into their heyday, which will be sooner than you think. I believe that within ten years, nuclear transporters will be receiving Starships for docking, then making the trip to Mars substantially faster than using Hohmann type orbits.
Once on Mars, life will be mostly underground due to the high background radiation. Most surface activity will be via teleoperated robots, though surface vehicles should have enough shielding to be safe. Short excursions in suits should be fine too, subject to a yearly radiation dose limit.
Life underground can be as luxurious as effectively unlimited energy and resources can provide. Very large underground habitats can eventually be excavated, perhaps with the assistance of nuclear explosions. Large lava caves are also known to exist, and may provide sites for early settlements. Regardless, radiation exposure will absolutely NOT be an issue.
Martian gravity, while fun, may pose physiological issues. It may be necessary to construct large centrifuges providing some higher effective gravity level for some portion of Martian's days. Perhaps sleeping in those conditions will be sufficient, more research is needed for sure. I do think a large orbital hotel with simulated gravity would be a great SpaceX project, both for space tourism and research. It's a shame NASA has dropped the ball on simulated gravity for decades...
At any rate, the future is incredibly bright, and the spirit of human exploration will live on! I'm excited for the first Starship orbital flight in a few minutes!!!
It’s an interesting article, but my advice is to skip the middleman and get a copy of the book discussed, ‘A City On Mars’. It’s entertaining, informative and well researched/cited. It’s also my go-to recommendation for people coming at this from a layperson/enthusiast perspective because the reasons why “colonize Mars anytime soon” is comical and an obvious lie once you dig in are complex. Unfortunately said reasons are multidisciplinary to the extreme so an overview in digestible form can be helpful for people who’ve been emotionally invested in this fantasy.
Although fact checking is essential, I doubt that it will make a difference here. It clearly doesn’t make a difference in politics or religion. Much of the enthusiasm for Mars colonization is based on science fiction rather than science fact, childhood dreams not adult practicality.
I think it’s important to hold Mars enthusiasts to specific timelines. What will humanity do in a hundred thousand years, or a million years, if it survives that long? Who knows. Humanity hasn’t even had agriculture for that long. The relevant question is, what will humanity do with regards to Mars within the coming decades? Let's be honest: nothing much. Elon Musk had made predictions about the future that have already passed and proven false. How many times will you allow him to kick the can down the road before you stop believing lies? Let’s also stop pretending that launching some rockets now will somehow prepare for the hundred-thousand-year future. The best way to get to that future is to preserve the only currently habitable ecosystem in the solar system, by immediately stopping pollution and global warming on Earth. Sadly, Musk is financially backing politicians who are doing the opposite.
I would agree that any notion of a large martian settlement (much less a comfortable one that people actually want to live in) on any shorter timeframe is not realistic and that Mars cannot be treated as a "plan B" in the case of climate change making Earth uninhabitable, but total dismissal of the idea (as well as the idea that humans will forever [and potentially should be] permanently Earth-bound) rubs me the wrong way.
Yes, it's an unfathomably difficult and complex project that should not be in any way underestimated. Realistically, it will take many decades at minimum and probably in excess of a century. That doesn't mean it shouldn't be attempted however, and it's not as if any of it will magically get easier in all the time spent not trying. This could wind up being a self-fulfilling prophecy sort of situation if it's allowed to be.
> Yes, it's an unfathomably difficult and complex project that should not be in any way underestimated. Realistically, it will take many decades at minimum and probably in excess of a century.
I think you've vastly underestimated the difficulty and the timeline, ironically. It's unrealistic to use the words "decades" or "a century". On the contrary, that's the delusion.
Consider: more than 50 years after putting a few people on the Moon very briefly, we're no closer to a colony on the Moon. And rocket technology won't help at all. Among the problems: the Moon has very little gravity, and we can't handwave like Q, "just change the gravitational constant of the universe."
I see this a lot too and it's frustrating to hear. Yes, it's clearly a near impossible problem, but when has that ever stopped us before?
The alternative I seem to see suggested most often is that we should be dedicating more of our resources to maintain the status quo as long as possible, which honestly sounds more insane to me.
Maybe the timeline is much longer out, but we don't have an infinite amount of resources on this rock and if we don't figure out how to get off it before we run out of those resources we may be stuck forever. Accepting that as inevitable feels wrong.
I think the point is that Mars isn’t an extension of what we tend to imagine in terms of exploration. We aren’t going to establish a beachhead and expand. It’s hostile in ways that mean we will never be more than visitors on a knife edge.
Put it this way, the Antarctic is vastly friendlier. Paradise by comparison. Breathable air and unlimited water. Yet we can’t even self sustain there.
When I was young, I thought going to Mars or the moon would be awesome. But I wonder if even living or Mars is possible, even of water is found.
I remember reading a while ago if water you drink distilled water and only distilled water long term, it will do you harm. I wonder if the same could apply to water on other planets ? IIRC, it has to do with minerals or something in water here.
It depends on wholesale diet. As long as you get those minerals from some source such as food itself you are fine. Or you can simply add them in as needed.
This might also be one problem as whole. Whatever food you eat must cover all needs or be supplemented. So there is need to ensure that either sufficiently varied items to fill needs are shipped in or whatever is produced locally covers absolutely all needs.
““”Twenty years of tinkering with the much simpler systems on the space station have brought them no closer to reliability. And yet to get a crew to Mars, we’d need to get this stuff working like a Swiss watch. Humanity does not need a billion dollar shit dehydrator that can work for three years in zero gravity, but a Mars mission can’t leave Earth without it.“””
“”” Mars is ... well, the phrase "tourist resort" springs to mind, and is promptly filed in the same corner as "Gobi desert". As Bruce Sterling has puts it: "I'll believe in people settling Mars at about the same time I see people settling the Gobi Desert. The Gobi Desert is about a thousand times as hospitable as Mars and five hundred times cheaper and easier to reach. Nobody ever writes "Gobi Desert Opera" because, well, it's just kind of plonkingly obvious that there's no good reason to go there and live.””””
The problem with the ISS is that its potential was hampered by it and the Shuttle Program that enabled it being one of the largest design-by-committee compromise soups in history. Its successes were in spite of so many things dragging it down. If iterative development of spacefaring tech is the goal a very different approach would need to be taken.
“We choose to go to /s The Moon /r Mars / not because it is easy but because it is hard.”
Kennedy was describing one of the most fundamental ambitions; to try to achieve the impossible. Think pieces like this must betray their fundamental lack of any ambition whatsoever
We went to the Moon as a bit of Cold War posturing, to plant the American flag and demonstrate superiority over Soviets. After that was accomplished, we lost interest.
Let's solve the hardest social issue first: the crab bucket mentality that you exemplify that is so pervasive in society. The idea that anyone attempting something exceptional necessarily beggars all of the rest of us and should be cut down to size.
Nonetheless, it's true, is it not, that government budgets are not unlimited, and economic tradeoffs have to be made? Of course the government can engage in deficit spending, but that raises additional problems, creates another tradeoff.
There are literal beggars in the United States. What are we doing about that problem, and couldn't we do more, spend more? What exactly are you willing to sacrifice, which worthy causes, in order to achieve your very specific exceptional thing?
It's interesting that Kennedy did not choose to cure cancer, for example. That's a hard thing, isn't it? Though I've heard that LLMs may do it any day now.
Your response is interesting because it mirrors the attitude described in the article. Space travel advocates are so enamored with the idea that they're dismissive of practical realities. We're just supposed to try regardless as if reality will make way by sheer will. The measured physical and cognitive decline of living in a non-Earth environment for prolonged periods of time? The effects of radiation exposure on childbirth? Bah, the ambition to achieve the impossible conquers all!
I mean people have run the math and you can certainly travel to and from mars while receiving a low enough radiation dose. I envision in our lifetimes a Mars similar to the Antarctic bases at best: a few scientific stations manned by researchers and support staff but no permanent settlers. That’s certainly an achievable bar regardless of if the more science fiction stuff isn’t yet.
I liked‘A City On Mars’. That said I think it didn't have the right sense of scale. The Weinersmith's offered up a bunch of reasons why the eponymous city would never be possible but I think the most important bit - which they would concede I think - is that it's not Never but rather not any time soon.
200 years? 300? Timescales like that are going to create solutions to all the problems they listed. It's why they spend time knocking people suggesting we'll have boots on the moon in 50 years.
The modest stuff being done now - say setting up something equivalent to the various Antarctic bases on the moon seem like a reasonable step today towards something in the future.
> weinersmith's offered up a bunch of reasons why the eponymous city would never be possible
That wasn’t my read. They said there is scientific and engineering work to be done before we attempt colonisation. Work done more cheaply in LEO and on the Moon.
One that stood out is the lack of low-gravity trauma medicine. Another was the lack of an in-space toilet. (Since developed!)
That doesn’t mean we can’t do manned missions or even establish a base in the meantime. But it won’t be a colony. It will be a research outpost whose greatest ambition might be to resemble the ones we have in Antarctica.
I am extremely excited and supportive of the exploration of our solar system and beyond.
But what’s with the obsession of sending humans?? Robots already do the important space science (at least the data collection parts) and are well adapted to working in space, unlike humans who have to drag a chunk of Earth around with them everywhere. Robots are leaving the solar system, while no human would be interested in such a journey, no matter how interested they are in the data.
Frankly, the people who act as if it’s important to have humans in space, as rather embarrassing.
On the other hand, I’m perfectly supportive of human spaceflight for tourism and recreation. But let’s not pretend that humans should be involved in the important work out there, except from Earth.
42 comments
[ 0.21 ms ] story [ 72.2 ms ] threadit's physically impossible with current technology for humans to survive a trip to Mars and live on the surface
space really, really wants to kill life
cosmic rays will kill humans before they even make it to Mars
there is no current technology that shields from cosmic rays
we should appreciate the earth greatly for its atmosphere and magnetosphere that shields us from them
best emulation idea so far is to surround astronauts with several feet of water
but we don't have the lift capacity for that much water weight
the total time on the moon outside the capsule per person maximum was 22 hours
the astronauts kept seeing bursts of light even with their eyes closed
when NASA inspected the helmets there were microscopic groove where some had made it all the way through
cosmic rays are physical particles traveling near the speed of light
the bursts of light were their nerves and other cells being destroyed by the cosmic rays
it was happening to their brains and CNS too
mice exposed to simulated cosmic rays became slow and stupid
You seem to say this as if it’s some sort of enlightened reason to “not”
Instead, I suspect for many, enumerating, quantifying and solving the impossible is precisely the reason we venture into the unknown.
Spaceflight oriented radiation shielding will also improve over time.
On Mars, radiation won't be much of a concern at all, since all living quarters will be underground, either under piled regolith, or deeper underground.
We call moon shots “moon shots” because we landed on the moon and generated incredible generational wealth from the technology in the process.
Had we not, we would call moon shots something else.
https://phys.org/news/2026-07-permanent-magnets-astronauts-s...
not unless there is a leap in shielding technology
and as someone 60, let me explain you have no idea how your shift in desire will become quality of life, less pain and suffering
but we'll actually get technology to improve aging and quality of life in aging way before humans are able to travel to Mars and live there
I mean what's there if you aren't going to survive?
Go live in a desert if you want a living challenge, it's same thing but far less radiation
Longer term habitation will involve Martian agriculture. Microbes have already been developed to transform Martian soil into an arable form.
Back to the radiation question, after some quick research it's clear that as long as the living quarters are shielded (as above), a few hours of exposure a day are very low risk. The average dose rate at the Martian surface is well under 220 micrograys per day, and the levels only very rarely exceed that value. If one were out on the surface for five hours a day, the yearly dose would be less than that allowed for radiation workers in the USA. That level is considered negligible for increased cancers and other health problems.
Given that survival is assured, what's there is a new world, virtually unlimited resources, and unlimited potential.
Hydrogels.
https://www.esa.int/Enabling_Support/Space_Engineering_Techn...
but it's at least a decade away from practical use
https://m.xkcd.com/678/
Space exploration nay-sayers really are the lamest people imaginable.
No, it wasn't. For one thing, the moon is a heck of a lot closer than Mars.
> The whole POINT of the space race was inventing the technology to solve those problems.
The point of the space race was to demonstrate technological superiority, especially with regard to missile capabilities, in the Cold War.
Calling people "lame" isn't going to address the realities of space travel, from the destructive effects of radiation on pregnancies to the physical and cognitive decline from living in a non-Earth environment for extended periods of time, effects that have been measured in astronauts who spent time on the ISS. Sending humans to Mars would practically be a death sentence for that subset of the species.
Humans on Mars will live in radiation shielded environments, and people have already endured longer space radiation exposure than received during the trip. At least the astronaut's sleeping habitat will be heavily radiation shielded on board the spacecraft.
Nuclear interplanetary craft will also shorten trip times appreciably within a decade or so.
See my other reply for more details...
Humans have survived in orbit, exposed to full-strength cosmic rays, for much longer than for the trip to Mars. Improved shielding will become practical as nuclear powered spacecraft come into their heyday, which will be sooner than you think. I believe that within ten years, nuclear transporters will be receiving Starships for docking, then making the trip to Mars substantially faster than using Hohmann type orbits.
Once on Mars, life will be mostly underground due to the high background radiation. Most surface activity will be via teleoperated robots, though surface vehicles should have enough shielding to be safe. Short excursions in suits should be fine too, subject to a yearly radiation dose limit.
Life underground can be as luxurious as effectively unlimited energy and resources can provide. Very large underground habitats can eventually be excavated, perhaps with the assistance of nuclear explosions. Large lava caves are also known to exist, and may provide sites for early settlements. Regardless, radiation exposure will absolutely NOT be an issue.
Martian gravity, while fun, may pose physiological issues. It may be necessary to construct large centrifuges providing some higher effective gravity level for some portion of Martian's days. Perhaps sleeping in those conditions will be sufficient, more research is needed for sure. I do think a large orbital hotel with simulated gravity would be a great SpaceX project, both for space tourism and research. It's a shame NASA has dropped the ball on simulated gravity for decades...
At any rate, the future is incredibly bright, and the spirit of human exploration will live on! I'm excited for the first Starship orbital flight in a few minutes!!!
I think it’s important to hold Mars enthusiasts to specific timelines. What will humanity do in a hundred thousand years, or a million years, if it survives that long? Who knows. Humanity hasn’t even had agriculture for that long. The relevant question is, what will humanity do with regards to Mars within the coming decades? Let's be honest: nothing much. Elon Musk had made predictions about the future that have already passed and proven false. How many times will you allow him to kick the can down the road before you stop believing lies? Let’s also stop pretending that launching some rockets now will somehow prepare for the hundred-thousand-year future. The best way to get to that future is to preserve the only currently habitable ecosystem in the solar system, by immediately stopping pollution and global warming on Earth. Sadly, Musk is financially backing politicians who are doing the opposite.
I would agree that any notion of a large martian settlement (much less a comfortable one that people actually want to live in) on any shorter timeframe is not realistic and that Mars cannot be treated as a "plan B" in the case of climate change making Earth uninhabitable, but total dismissal of the idea (as well as the idea that humans will forever [and potentially should be] permanently Earth-bound) rubs me the wrong way.
Yes, it's an unfathomably difficult and complex project that should not be in any way underestimated. Realistically, it will take many decades at minimum and probably in excess of a century. That doesn't mean it shouldn't be attempted however, and it's not as if any of it will magically get easier in all the time spent not trying. This could wind up being a self-fulfilling prophecy sort of situation if it's allowed to be.
I think you've vastly underestimated the difficulty and the timeline, ironically. It's unrealistic to use the words "decades" or "a century". On the contrary, that's the delusion.
Consider: more than 50 years after putting a few people on the Moon very briefly, we're no closer to a colony on the Moon. And rocket technology won't help at all. Among the problems: the Moon has very little gravity, and we can't handwave like Q, "just change the gravitational constant of the universe."
We can't yet.
The alternative I seem to see suggested most often is that we should be dedicating more of our resources to maintain the status quo as long as possible, which honestly sounds more insane to me.
Maybe the timeline is much longer out, but we don't have an infinite amount of resources on this rock and if we don't figure out how to get off it before we run out of those resources we may be stuck forever. Accepting that as inevitable feels wrong.
How will Mars be populated? Adam and Eve?
Once that's sorted/well understood it makes sense to travel further out into the Solar System. Until then, it's just unnecessary risk.
Put it this way, the Antarctic is vastly friendlier. Paradise by comparison. Breathable air and unlimited water. Yet we can’t even self sustain there.
I remember reading a while ago if water you drink distilled water and only distilled water long term, it will do you harm. I wonder if the same could apply to water on other planets ? IIRC, it has to do with minerals or something in water here.
This might also be one problem as whole. Whatever food you eat must cover all needs or be supplemented. So there is need to ensure that either sufficiently varied items to fill needs are shipped in or whatever is produced locally covers absolutely all needs.
https://idlewords.com/2023/1/why_not_mars.htm
https://idlewords.com/2025/02/the_shape_of_a_mars_mission.ht...
““”Twenty years of tinkering with the much simpler systems on the space station have brought them no closer to reliability. And yet to get a crew to Mars, we’d need to get this stuff working like a Swiss watch. Humanity does not need a billion dollar shit dehydrator that can work for three years in zero gravity, but a Mars mission can’t leave Earth without it.“””
and his article l’affair siloxane:
https://mceglowski.substack.com/p/laffaire-siloxane
And Charles Stross’ “The High Frontier Redux” (2007)
http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2007/06/the-high...
“”” Mars is ... well, the phrase "tourist resort" springs to mind, and is promptly filed in the same corner as "Gobi desert". As Bruce Sterling has puts it: "I'll believe in people settling Mars at about the same time I see people settling the Gobi Desert. The Gobi Desert is about a thousand times as hospitable as Mars and five hundred times cheaper and easier to reach. Nobody ever writes "Gobi Desert Opera" because, well, it's just kind of plonkingly obvious that there's no good reason to go there and live.””””
Kennedy was describing one of the most fundamental ambitions; to try to achieve the impossible. Think pieces like this must betray their fundamental lack of any ambition whatsoever
We went to the Moon as a bit of Cold War posturing, to plant the American flag and demonstrate superiority over Soviets. After that was accomplished, we lost interest.
This is an exaggeration.
Nonetheless, it's true, is it not, that government budgets are not unlimited, and economic tradeoffs have to be made? Of course the government can engage in deficit spending, but that raises additional problems, creates another tradeoff.
There are literal beggars in the United States. What are we doing about that problem, and couldn't we do more, spend more? What exactly are you willing to sacrifice, which worthy causes, in order to achieve your very specific exceptional thing?
It's interesting that Kennedy did not choose to cure cancer, for example. That's a hard thing, isn't it? Though I've heard that LLMs may do it any day now.
200 years? 300? Timescales like that are going to create solutions to all the problems they listed. It's why they spend time knocking people suggesting we'll have boots on the moon in 50 years.
The modest stuff being done now - say setting up something equivalent to the various Antarctic bases on the moon seem like a reasonable step today towards something in the future.
That wasn’t my read. They said there is scientific and engineering work to be done before we attempt colonisation. Work done more cheaply in LEO and on the Moon.
One that stood out is the lack of low-gravity trauma medicine. Another was the lack of an in-space toilet. (Since developed!)
That doesn’t mean we can’t do manned missions or even establish a base in the meantime. But it won’t be a colony. It will be a research outpost whose greatest ambition might be to resemble the ones we have in Antarctica.
But what’s with the obsession of sending humans?? Robots already do the important space science (at least the data collection parts) and are well adapted to working in space, unlike humans who have to drag a chunk of Earth around with them everywhere. Robots are leaving the solar system, while no human would be interested in such a journey, no matter how interested they are in the data.
Frankly, the people who act as if it’s important to have humans in space, as rather embarrassing.
On the other hand, I’m perfectly supportive of human spaceflight for tourism and recreation. But let’s not pretend that humans should be involved in the important work out there, except from Earth.
Never send a human to do a machine’s job.