I'd think it would be in the best interest of Earth men that colonies stay dependent in as many ways as practical.

I imagine that even with dependence on Earth there will be big internal moves towards independence both on the colony and on Earth. Freedom fighters, bombs, that kind of thing. I imagine that the Earth response would be one that Reginald Dyer would be proud of:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jallianwala_Bagh_massacre

Of course, there's also the question of whether there would be multiple countries colonies and how they would integrate. I imagine it would work, it did in America, but until independence occurs the question would remain under whose authority these colonies would operate.

You guys already distribute the bear's fur before you even saw one, not to mention hunt it and shot it.

All this may or may not be one day. But there is an unfortunate precondition for it becoming true. Our technological hightech culture and the social order/civilisation able to maintain a big industry, must be maintained and must survive the coming centuries, if not millenia. And that is where we must realise that "colonising space" cannot be the answer to solve our problems on Earth. It's just the other way around: solving our problems on Earth is the answer to the needs for running a space program, not even mentioning "colonies" in space.

To me, it all compares to the daydream we sometimes may allow ourselves to dwell in: winning the jackpot in the lottery and dreaming of what we would do with the money. Nice, maybe even refreshing for some, to dream like that occasionally. But it does nothing real for us. In a comparable way, we dwell in daydreams of science fiction futures.

I do not say it will not become true, in full or in parts, one day. I just do not know. But I am absolutely certain that I will not live to witness first man on Mars, or mining done on the Moon in scale greater than just academic curiosity. It will be half a century or more before there may be the first manned science lab on Mars, or the first lasting moon station. And it will be several centuries before somebody starts an operation that could in any way be labelled as the beginning of "colonising" the Moon or Mars. All the while we need to prevent our planetary civilisation from collapsing, desintegrating, falling due to economic, political, demographic and ecological reasons, or turning into science-hostile religious tyranny again.

That's several huge reasons too many as if I already would want to fantasize about independence movements of space colonies right now. :03: It makes more sense to deal with the threat of a nuclear arms race in the Middle East right now, for example. Or to bring the blooming corruption in our economies and political systems under control. These are just two of many present issues that put the further existence of our planetary civilisation into doubt right now in the present time, not in just a couple of centuries or millenia. And there are so many things that put our ongoing existence into doubt right now and which we must deal and find solutions for in the forseeable future, for which ideas about "space colonies" have no assistence value at all. Such issues are too urgent right now as if we could allow us the luxury to imagine that in some hundred years a colony on Mars will be the answer to it. It is questionable that in some hundred years our global civilisation is still there, not to mention that it has managed to support a colonization program for mars. The chance for a big thermonuclear war, an ecological collapse or a big pandemy killing huge parts of mankind, is much greater.

Not to mention terraforming Mars - or do you think it worthwhile to have some thousand people living in tiny metal tubes on Mars all their life long? Then you maybe see also a sense in hiding in deep bunkers if a global thermonuclear war brakes out, so that you survive the mushrooms and can live in the time afterwards - in bunkers and a hopelessly contaminated environment? I would not want to surive the mushroom phase. I also would not want to spend all my life in a metal tube on Mars or Moon.

Visions are all nice and well. But staying grounded a bit and operating a bit by "reality principle", cannot hurt.

From one of my favourite Star Trek films: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xdgjUPMiiEc

I fully agree Skybird, but I don't know if we have the luxury of time to sort these things out. The drum is beating, and it would take a massive, epic, sociological change to even begin to sort out the problems we have here and now. In essence it would probably be easier to colonise space than it would be to survive the coming centuries on this single planet.

Furthermore, what is to say that a space colonisation program cannot be part of the solution to the problems that lie ahead. We will run out of Helium on this planet within the next century, we cannot manufacture it synthetically, but we can harvest it from space. Same thing goes for heavy elements, and metals. We will come to a point very soon when we'll have sucked this planet dry, and we'll need to look elsewhere if we want to keep our rate of technological advance.
Growth in population is going to be a problem, so whilst implementing a strict one or two child per family law, send people to another planet, the population of Earth will gradually lower and there will be more space for those still here.

These things don't happen overnight, they take decades of planning. We know that we face problems in the future, why not take steps now to prepare to face those problems? And I'm not talking about a couple of millenia, either, I'm talking about a couple of decades, we really need to get a rocket up our arses because the coming century is going to be a real rocky one. The nuclear issue of Iran is going to be dwarved by the Middle East running out of oil and suddenly becoming irrelevant in the global scheme of things. An entire global rethink of our way of life will be needed in the next one hundred years unless technology manages to pull us out of the fire. Heck, it could be needed in the next fifty years. Or an unexpected asteroid could dump itself on us within the next decade and solve all the problems that we foresee for the next millennia by making them completely irrelevant.

Now, myself, August and TLAM, we acknowledge that there are problems in the here and now, and we all have our different opinions on how to solve these problems, but that doesn't stop us from keeping one foot in the future, to give ourselves something to talk about and think about.

After all, if man had focused purely on the problems inside the cave and never looked outside it, he would never have left it.

G forces aren't quite as much an issue as they are often made out to be. Even if you keep your acceleration down to a comfortable 1 g for the entire trip and you will still be able to reach most of the outer planets quite easily. In fact, it would probably be quite hard to devise a drive system that could even generate the sort of acceleration human bodies can't tolerate for any extended period of time.

As for travel times; launch windows are only so important when you have to take the lowest delta-V trajectory to get to your destination. Once you are capable of sufficient acceleration for enough time, then launching at exactly the right point becomes far less important. For example, if you have a ship that can accelerate at 1 g for the entire run, then a course from Terra to Saturn at the point when they are farthest apart wouldn't take you much more than 9 days.

I think you just underestimate the technical, logistical, financial, political, sociological challanges of taking the shortcut and bypassing the cleanup in our home Earth before jumping somewhere else. That'S what I wanted to make clear: it is no luxury to take the time for cleaning up our home. It is a timely necessity to do so. And it is in doubt indeed that we have the time needed to do so.

But the time needed for founding colonies worth the name on Mars I see even more critical. When I was in elementary school, in the early and mid-70s that was, there was talking about 15 years more and man would walk on Mars. Now see what really happened, see how we really went along, what paths to walk we have choosen, and see the reasons why it went this way instead of the other way. Then you understand why I am sceptical about ideas for colonising Mars being the answer to man'S problems on earth, and why I think in different timescales.

It'S fair to say that we do not have so much a problem, but that we are the problem. I touched on that when in threads about evolution I have indicated my thinking that our evolutionary roots, our genetic heritage, that once helped us to survive, in the situation of changed determinants that we face now may be the reason why we will not suvive, but suffer an evolutionary deadlock. Our problems today derive from our genetically encoded behaviour patterns. and these are the patterns of the caveman hunter, tribal warrior, meat-eater, club-swinger. We are hopelessly outdated, overaged software running on a biological server that controls new and hopelessly advanced hardware. We do not need so much body engineering and technologies. We need to do an evolutionary huge jump of mind. A massive, fundamental software upgrade. This is what decides whether we will stay around for another couple of millenia, or go MIE - missing in evolution.

Evolution for us primarily must mean now: evolution is our state of mind. This - just by the way - is one of the reasons why I am so very hostile towards attempts to restrengthen religions' regimes again.

You may be right there Skybird, and I honestly don't disagree with you. We do need to clean this planet up, and clean ourselves up. I just don't see that evolutionary jump in the way we think happening within the time frame needed. I mean it is happening, more and more people are putting thought into it, but unfortunately not at the levels where it matters, and let's face it, we're all at loggerheads at exactly what direction that evolutionary jump of thinking needs to go. Meanwhile the clock is ticking and we're running on the spot, making lots of noise and effort but not really going anywhere.

All I want is a lifeboat, a capsule, something that if it does all go wrong, and we do wind up like the dinosaurs, something outside of this planet will survive. Our species will go on, even if it's not on this planet. That's what I want, what I hope for, and if we manage to answer some of the questions that we have in the process then that is good too.

Mission windows tend to be a major factor for missions to the inner planets, while the outer planets have much longer orbital periods giving large windows (for Earth to Jupiter the window would be about 1/2 the Earth year for a Hohman orbit and about 3/4 of the year for a Brachistochrone trajectory. Of course a large number of off world colonies means more options for things like a rescue mission, a major focus for early colonization efforts would most likely be establishing supply dumps and bases for "Space Guard" units for safety.

An acceleration of 1 g would put Mars about four days away, Saturn 17 days. Such acceleration would be preferable actually since you would not have to deal with long term 0 g flight.

At this point in time, do we fully understand the medical side of things? Our atmosphere on Earth protects ua from a lot of things from space. The little atmosphere on Mars will be a big difference to humans. Being a lot closer to the sun, solar flares and radiation will have a much greater impact then it does here. We still have no idea of the long term effects on humans being in less gravity then what we have here. A lot has to be learned before we venture too far out. Not saying it can't be understood, but the longest anyone has been in zero gravity is what, 6 months?

Valeri Polyakov, 437 days (14 months) in orbit. Basically it was the Soviets testing human endurance for a Mars mission. :03:

Isn't that what Curiosity went there to do? :hmmm:

As I understand it, Earth is closer to the Sun than Mars.

You're right, we are closer,lol Still, the atmosphere on Mars is a whole different story.

If you settle a kilometer deep below the average Mars surface the atmosphere on Mars would be thick enough, however this is a big hole to dig, let alone build a city.

However a few years ago there were several books (mostly SciFi but realistic 'Hardcore' SF); i think the books had titles like "Red Mars", "White Mars" etc. where several better-known authors discussed possible settlements on Mars and how to do it.

IMHO we have a limited time to explore new technologies and then spread across the universe asap, because apart from our own race maybe killing itself off due to egoism, the "nation" concept, politics or plain stupidity, there will be "the big one" (meteorite) sooner or later, so we better move our a$$es in time (i hope i will not get those brig points again, for this :03: )

Found this interesting - it would be only a probe, but well possible in the next hundred years:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u6lkm...layer_embedded

Thanks and greetings,
Catfish

Found this aritcle on the NASA website, can't imagine being there and no chance of having a hamburger!:D

How would future colonies on Mars grow crops, and what would be the human diet?
Due to the thin atmosphere and the consequent exposure to space radiation and particle bombardment, the first human and agriculture habitats on Mars will be underground. Light will eventually be generated by a nuclear reactor, but will initially have to be piped down from solar collectors. Greenhouses that make excellent use of the high levels of CO2 found in the Martian atmosphere and long cycles of continuous light will be constructed to facilitate fast crop growth. Until the content of Martian soil is known, crops will be grown solely with water, in a process called hydroponics. This will prove to be more efficient anyway, because scientists can control the concentration and variety of nutrients each plant needs, thus encouraging faster growing and healthier crops.
The human diet will probably consist mostly of cereal (wheat and/or rice) and legumes (peanut, soybean, and/or cowpea) for protein; sweetpotato and/or white potato for complex carbohydrates; and vegetables (lettuce, tomato, broccoli) and herbs (onion, garlic). Sources of fat will be limited; hence, peanuts and perhaps small amounts of animal food sources will be required