> I see no reason that a Mars base couldn't eventually be entirely self-sustaining.
Seriously?
Problem 1: The atmospheric composition and pressure is trying to kill you at all times. Anyone who lives on Mars will either do so under massive domes to maintain breathable atmosphere at a pressure humans can survive at. Any breach in this dome is fatal to all inside. If we can't make a dome work somehow, we're now all living in tiny, pressurized shelters and any outdoor time at all requires a full EVA suit and is treated as life-threatening.
Problem 2: The law of thermodynamics is also trying to kill you at all times. Average temp is -81 degrees Fahrenheit. You must not only pressurize and condition air for human life, you must also heat it, continuously. If anything happens to your heating system, you are dead within a day.
Problem 3: To grow food will require all the atmospheric support the people already do, plus a reliable source of clean water. Mars has ice caps, but you're nowhere near them unless you land there, and then you better have an even bigger heater to solve Problem 2 with.
> The point of a moon base as a stepping stone to Mars habitation -- again, from 20 year old memories of articles -- is in studying the real-world, long-term effects on humans of living off-Earth, as well as a low-gravity environment in which to assemble the sort of large ship required to move humans such a long distance.
Any humans who live on Mars right now are guaranteed to die there, for the simple fact that it's logistically all but impossible to not only get people there, but to do so in such a way where they have the supplies for a trip home, including fuel for vehicular re-ascent and earth return. Not to mention food, water, living space, and the sort of space vehicle that can travel for 6-8 months, land/remain in orbit for mission duration, then return 6-8 months. If you want to live on mars for a week, you're committing to a year and a half in space, aboard a craft that cannot resupply at any point, no can anything go wrong that requires help from Earth. At our current technology, again, basically suicide.
And again, we could PROBABLY solve these issues, you're right. But we come back again to: why? Mars doesn't have anything we need, and even what could be useful, we have ample supplies back on Earth. A moon base I'll grant would be better for low-G construction, perhaps even of something that could make the journey to Mars itself, but that's a lot of money and risk to use one dead rock to leapfrog to a second dead rock.
And none of this touches on the psychological issues people will deal with being locked in a pressure vessel 270 million miles from home with about 4 sources of imminent death within reach at all times.
In addition to the problems you outline, I'll toss in the lack of a magnetic field (for both Mars and the moon.)
While not as glamorous as the lack of, you know, water, air, heat etc it makes solar and cosmic radiation pretty deadly. Which means the bases need to be underground. So, um, the first thing to ship to both should be a big heavy digger...
Seriously?
Problem 1: The atmospheric composition and pressure is trying to kill you at all times. Anyone who lives on Mars will either do so under massive domes to maintain breathable atmosphere at a pressure humans can survive at. Any breach in this dome is fatal to all inside. If we can't make a dome work somehow, we're now all living in tiny, pressurized shelters and any outdoor time at all requires a full EVA suit and is treated as life-threatening.
Problem 2: The law of thermodynamics is also trying to kill you at all times. Average temp is -81 degrees Fahrenheit. You must not only pressurize and condition air for human life, you must also heat it, continuously. If anything happens to your heating system, you are dead within a day.
Problem 3: To grow food will require all the atmospheric support the people already do, plus a reliable source of clean water. Mars has ice caps, but you're nowhere near them unless you land there, and then you better have an even bigger heater to solve Problem 2 with.
> The point of a moon base as a stepping stone to Mars habitation -- again, from 20 year old memories of articles -- is in studying the real-world, long-term effects on humans of living off-Earth, as well as a low-gravity environment in which to assemble the sort of large ship required to move humans such a long distance.
Any humans who live on Mars right now are guaranteed to die there, for the simple fact that it's logistically all but impossible to not only get people there, but to do so in such a way where they have the supplies for a trip home, including fuel for vehicular re-ascent and earth return. Not to mention food, water, living space, and the sort of space vehicle that can travel for 6-8 months, land/remain in orbit for mission duration, then return 6-8 months. If you want to live on mars for a week, you're committing to a year and a half in space, aboard a craft that cannot resupply at any point, no can anything go wrong that requires help from Earth. At our current technology, again, basically suicide.
And again, we could PROBABLY solve these issues, you're right. But we come back again to: why? Mars doesn't have anything we need, and even what could be useful, we have ample supplies back on Earth. A moon base I'll grant would be better for low-G construction, perhaps even of something that could make the journey to Mars itself, but that's a lot of money and risk to use one dead rock to leapfrog to a second dead rock.
And none of this touches on the psychological issues people will deal with being locked in a pressure vessel 270 million miles from home with about 4 sources of imminent death within reach at all times.