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[Nirur Torir]

No mention of Mars One yet?

Mars One is a not-for-profit organization whose goal is to establish a human outpost on Mars through the integration of existing, readily available technologies from industry leaders world-wide. Mars One intends to fund this decade-long endeavor by involving the whole world as the audience of an interactive, reality-style televised broadcast of every aspect of this mission, from the astronaut selections and their preparations to the arrival on Mars and their lives on the Red Planet.

They're planning to land four permanent colonists every two years, starting in 2023.

[hops]

No mention of Mars One yet?

Mars One is a not-for-profit organization whose goal is to establish a human outpost on Mars through the integration of existing, readily available technologies from industry leaders world-wide. Mars One intends to fund this decade-long endeavor by involving the whole world as the audience of an interactive, reality-style televised broadcast of every aspect of this mission, from the astronaut selections and their preparations to the arrival on Mars and their lives on the Red Planet.

They're planning to land four permanent colonists every two years, starting in 2023.

Well I guess that's sooner than all the 2030 vaporproject NASA announced.

[Morrigi]

No mention of Mars One yet?

Mars One is a not-for-profit organization whose goal is to establish a human outpost on Mars through the integration of existing, readily available technologies from industry leaders world-wide. Mars One intends to fund this decade-long endeavor by involving the whole world as the audience of an interactive, reality-style televised broadcast of every aspect of this mission, from the astronaut selections and their preparations to the arrival on Mars and their lives on the Red Planet.

They're planning to land four permanent colonists every two years, starting in 2023.

Well this is going to be interesting. Looks like they've taken a page out of the Mars Direct plan as well.

[Scoops Novel]

I dispute the we need to get the fuck out point. Our population is set to stabilize at around 10 billion i think, though that doesn't disprove that by any means, but asteroid mining is a better proposition then mars is at the moment, given the costs. The argument for Mars i think is primarily a jumppad.

[Sheb]

Yeah, plus why would we go on Mars? There is no practical way to terraform it. (IIRC, you'd need to vaporise a few hundred thousands cubic kilometers of chalk only to get a good enough athmosphere...) And if people are going to live in dome, they can do this on Earth.

Frankly, let's unfuck this planet first.

[lordcooper]

Assuming you are correct, where are these ten billion people going to get all their food from while living on an increasingly polluted planet with a shrinking landmass?

Also, the only reason that the human population would stabilise would be if rate of reproduction slowed drastically (yeah right), war/murder became a lot more commonplace, or the human lifespan dropped significantly due to disease, pollution or lack of food.

Wouldn't it be a better solution to GTFO than condemn millions upon millions of people who could have lived to an early grave?  I guess it matter where your priorities lie.  Is human life less important than denying the blindingly obvious?

Disclaimer: I'm really damn tired and can't do subtle.

E:

Frankly, let's unfuck this planet first.

Not going to happen, because capitalism.  Fucking this planet is just so damn profitable.

[Sheb]

Well, how are people going to get their food on Mars? Settling the Sahara or some other Terrian wasteland would be way easier than settling Mars.

[lordcooper]

Sure.  And then the population continues to rise, previously fertile farmland begins to suffer from drought/flooding and the amount of dry land continues to decrease.  We need to expand beyond this rock.  Mars is likely the easiest available candidate, but even that would only be a temporary solution.  The end goal would probably be a vast network of colonised planets, with more being added as and when required.

[Sheb]

If we can terraform Mars, we can terraform Earth to make it more hospitable too...

[lordcooper]

If we can terraform Mars, we can terraform Earth to make it more hospitable too...

1. Experimenting with this stuff on the planet we're all currently living on would be far far riskier, and I highly doubt it would go down well if any specific nation attempted to do so.
2. Yes we can.  We can't terraform it bigger though.

[Sheb]

Tell that to the Dutch.

Moreover, raw surface is not a problem anytime soon. Itmight be eventually, but not this century, and space colonisation won't be a solution for centuries to come.

[eharper256]

I think it will happen in my life-time. If nothing else, eventually the captialists will realise they can, with a harsh initial investment, find a guaranteed huge chunk of resources off-world. Lower gravity also means easier mining. Assuming Moore's Law continues to apply to technology in general, it won't be infeasible in 30 years to see a Martian Colony.

The biggest step; the one that will nail all the others into place, is finding a better way to throw things into orbit than glorified bottle-rockets. Personally I'm a fan of resurrecting the Verne space travel method, and mass-driver'ing ourselves out the atmosphere, mainly because it sounds a hilarious engineering problem to prevent the passengers being squished by catastrophic G's. Though a skyhook to a lagrange point is probably far more sensible.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

Firstly, Curiosity's measurements have unveiled that the normal radiation levels on Mars are below the danger threshold for humans.

Secondly, moving people from Earth to Mars will never be an overpopulation solution. The energy to move them is too great. Better to keep them on Earth and use them to maintain things here. The objective of a Mars colony is to create an enclave of humanity isolated from Earth and whatever fate it may suffer.

[Thecard]

Tell that to the Dutch.

Also, I fixed that link for you.

[PanH]

Though, considering the sea's level are going up, what did the Japans and Dutch aren't going to last long.