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YES! I would sign up immediately

22 (19.3%)

Yes. I would go, but only after a successful colony already exists

20 (17.5%)

No, it's too expensive, even if I had the money

14 (12.3%)

No, I don't think it would ever be safe enough to travel there

5 (4.4%)

No, for other reasons.

21 (18.4%)

[Kobold Noises]

32 (28.1%)

Total Members Voted: 113

[FearfulJesuit]

So...where are we getting all these gases?

I can easily seeing us using our infinite fusion power to de-oxidize Martian soil and produce a fuckton of oxygen, but then we have a bunch of iron left over. And we'll have to either import our nitrogen from Earth, or...

...where DO you get mass amounts of extra nitrogen? I suppose you could import ammonia from Jupiter, but that is a long ways. On the bright side, you'll have a lot of H2 to power cars and things.

[Scelly9]

Also, Mars doesn't have any plate tectonics, and therefore less volcanism, meaning it doesn't replenish it's athmosphere.

Just a note: There will be exactly zero volcanism on mars. The core is a big solid lump that is no longer hot. Unless we restart it, goodbye volcanoes.

[RedWarrior0]

but then we have a bunch of iron left over

And that is a problem how, exactly?

Yeah, for the nitrogen, I guess we'd need to get it off Jupiter when its orbit is close, unless somebody has another idea for an inert pressure gas.

And volcanism would be nice, for the atmosphere-recycling.

[werty892]

We can do it the black hole sun method(decent books, nice black humor), just move all dirty industry to mars (once we have a way to move stuff to there band back easily, maybe using a warp bubble) and pollute it to high hell, then let nature clean it up. Warms up the planet and lets you get life kickstarted (FUND MARS KICKSTARTER TODAY!)

[monk12]

Also, Mars doesn't have any plate tectonics, and therefore less volcanism, meaning it doesn't replenish it's athmosphere.

Just a note: There will be exactly zero volcanism on mars. The core is a big solid lump that is no longer hot. Unless we restart it, goodbye volcanoes.

Your ideas interest me, and I wish to subscribe to your newsletter.


Though seriously, I voted no. Even assuming that the technology is there, and that it's as safe a venture as you can expect from an extraterrestrial colony, and that the ticket would indeed cost 500k and not some larger number, and that I could manage to scrape up even that much money, I still wouldn't go.

-I don't like going to parties with people I don't know- being cramped in a little colony with 80,000 strangers is basically the exact opposite of what I would term "a good time."

-I do, in fact, have people here on Earth that I love, and I sincerely doubt I could get a single one of them to go to Mars with me. Maybe if they were all dead, but I'm kinda hoping that doesn't happen until I'm like 80 years old, and hopefully I'll have met new people to love by then even if they are accepting geriatrics on their wagon train to the stars.

-I am a lazy, lazy bastard, and I am fully aware of how much work I'd have to do on Mars. Like, all the time. Or I'd die. Fuck that noise.

-I lack any skills that would make me especially useful or important on such a colony. In the best case scenario, I'm just another redshirt on Mars- I can do that sort of drudgery here, for higher pay to boot.

-I consider "being alive" to be a good thing, and even if everything goes off without a hitch I know my life expectancy goes way down on Mars.

So what, the main big reason to go to Mars is to be able to look back on my life and say "I made a freaking planet habitable?" That's cool and all, but I don't really feel like I'm wasting my life here on Earth. Even if I did feel that way, I'm pretty sure I could find an easier way to leave a legacy than quitting the planet. Furthering the inevitable march of humanity to the cosmos is neat, but I also feel that it is just that- inevitable. It's going to happen whether or not I break my back far from home on a desolate rock, and I can still bask in the reflected glory of the human race from my comfy computer chair, surrounded piles of videogames, books, food I like, people I love, and the ample leisure time to enjoy it all.

[werty892]

and I can still bask in the reflected glory of the human race from my comfy computer chair, surrounded piles of videogames, books, food I like, people I love, and the ample leisure time to enjoy it all.

You pile people you love around you? I understand everything else, but that's....

OT: Yeah, those are pretty much my reason for not going also. No relevant skills/no urge. But if I had relevant skills, I would jump to it.

[misko27]

and I can still bask in the reflected glory of the human race from my comfy computer chair, surrounded piles of videogames, books, food I like, people I love, and the ample leisure time to enjoy it all.

You pile people you love around you? I understand everything else, but that's....

OT: Yeah, those are pretty much my reason for not going also. No relevant skills/no urge. But if I had relevant skills, I would jump to it.

My relevant Skills ainclude, but are not limited to, ntohign of any use whatsoever.
 
Also a distinct lack of a liquid core means a VERY weak magnetosphere, it's the reason the martian atmosphere is so thin. It's been blown away.
 
 

[monk12]

and I can still bask in the reflected glory of the human race from my comfy computer chair, surrounded piles of videogames, books, food I like, people I love, and the ample leisure time to enjoy it all.

You pile people you love around you? I understand everything else, but that's....

OT: Yeah, those are pretty much my reason for not going also. No relevant skills/no urge. But if I had relevant skills, I would jump to it.

Sure, I'm like a dragon. Just a big ol' mound of prized people and possessions to sleep on. The people provide excellent cushioning, and they keep it all nice and warm when I'm out kidnapping princesses and the like.

[Starver]

Yeah, I mean no-one even remembers the first guy on the moon do they?

Name ANY OTHER person from that team

Well, looking a mere few messages down, the obvious answer of Buzz Aldrin is already given.  Michael Collins is the third guy, though (and, no, I didn't look that up or crib off anyone who might have mentioned his name...).

I regret to say that while I can generally remember most of the others from the various landing teams, up to and including Cernan and Schmitt (the latter being the only fully non-military person and gen-oo-ine scientist to have gone to the Moon, this pair together being the last to have walked there), I did have to look up the name of Ron Evans (the last person to have only orbited).

Dick Gordon is the one you ought to feel sorry for.  Trained for Apollo 18 (with Schmitt, who was moved forward to 17 to boot out... Engle?  Hmm, he needs to be felt sorry for too, I suppose), but never got to go anywhere.


Right, as I'm now officially joining this thread that I only just saw...  Let's actually answer the OP and say that I'd probably go, although I can't afford the price right now.  My biggest concerns are my family and friends.

The friends would probably understand, and maybe wish they were going as well.

My parents if they didn't become automatically extremely proud at my "one small step (among many others)" moment might take it hard that I've effectively emigrated big-style.  I don't know.  It's not something (even in merely international terms) that I've talked to them about.

Although I've been further away, I currently live only 15 miles away from my (literally) natal home (because it was handy for my workplace at the time, and I haven't fancied moving again since then).  So, for all I know they'd want me to do that and expand outwards again., but they seem so happy to have me close by that going to a totally separate orbital distance doesn't seem to me to be something they'd condone without a lot of reservations that I'd have to consider.

And that, I think, is the only thing that would stop me.  No, I'm not fearless or (I think) foolish, but the opportunity to accomplish what would be accomplished (yeah, yeah, I've read the Red/Green/Blue Mars trilogy, and totally want it to be like that, but even if it's more modest it'd be something... even if it's like that near-end-of-tenure episode for David Tennant in Doctor Who!) is...  shall we say 'attractive'?


(Oh and BTW, to join the themes of both parts of my post, my Dad was born in 1930.  As were so many of the Apollo people.  Look it up.  About half of the actual moonwalkers and several of the 'flying only' people as well.  However, I suspect I'm older than most of the eventual "First on Mars"ers will be right now, so I don't expect there to be much actual continuity in this regard.)

[Starver]

...Elon Musk...

I know who this really is, and don't have a problem when his name is spoken, but I'm always reading it as "Aeon Flux".  Just sharing.  Don't mind me.