By: Fred Willett

Fred Willett — Sun, 30 Oct 2011 23:03:16 +0000

Nobody wants to build cities in Antarctica, but for some reason lots of people want to build cities on Mars.
Why is that?
So Gary may be right. But he may also be wrong. It’s impossible to say at this point.
Time will tell.

By: Gary Warburton

Gary Warburton — Sat, 29 Oct 2011 23:34:10 +0000

It all depends on the environment. The big islands of Canada`s north are not very populous. Take Ellesmere Island 83 degrees north. The island is 75,000 square miles in area. The settlement of Grise Fiord on the southern end of the island has a population of 141 people. On the northern tip of the island at a place called Alert there is 5 more people at a weather station which brings the total population to 146. There is another place called Eureka with a population of 0. It is an encampment for hunters from Griese Fiord on hunts. For comparison, the population of the big island of Britain with an area of 80,000 square miles has a population of 60,000,000. Now I was roundly criticized for pointing out that the Antarctic has no cities with people saying that there were no cities because the of the Antarctic Treaty but no where in that treaty does it say that people can`t go there and start a city and live if they so desire. The treaty says no country can annex the whole or part of the Antartic and no one can have a military base there but I might be wrong I don`t understand legalize. The point I was trying to make was that people like to live in places where the environment is pleasant not in desolate places. I pointed out that people should not expect the great cities on Mars and the Moon depicted in SF novels because people don`t like to live in desolate places. The most that people should expect is a base for scientists and a hotel for adventurers on the Moon and Mars. I can envision a large telescope on the Moon but that`s about it. After a year or two in places as desolate as the Moon or Mars people would be dreaming of lying down in grassy fields and looking up at a blue sky. Remember the Arctic and Antarctic are desolate but at least you can breath the air. I pointed out also, that some people have said well we`ll terra form Mars but that is really just a pipe dream. Mars has an atmospheric pressure equivalent to an altitude of 100,000 feet here on earth and there is a reason why Mars has a thin atmosphere at 4,212 miles in diameters and a mass half of Earth`s it just can`t hang on to an atmosphere for very long. In fact Mars is still losing atmosphere at a prodigious rate today. If Mars was 6,000 miles in diameter you might have a chance of terra forming it but not at its present size.
Now I`m not trying to discourage anyone`s dreams of settling space, quite the opposite. So what is the point of going to space at all. Well, so we can learn how to live and work in space and build the best, cheapest and fastest ways to get there. Our real destiny is the stars. Just recently we started discovering new worlds out among the stars. One of these days we`ll discover one that is earthlike and that day will change the focus of humanity. Many of you will immediately point out that we are nowhere near able to travel to the stars but you are wrong. What I mean is that we have already invented the way we will get there first ie. the ion drive. If you go to the Ad Astra site ( it means “To The Stars” by the way) you can read all about it. This drive hooked up to a nuclear power source would get us there. Yes it would take 50-100 years to get there but if you read some of Ursula Le Guin`s books it wouldn`t be as bad as it seems. You see the faster you go the more time slows down for you. That`s right relativity determines how long it is for you and your ship. Yes, governments would never agree to finance such a trip but a society would. Thats right, governments might agree to unmanned probes but not a manned one it would take a society dedicated to the task to do it. Yes one day we may have faster than light ships but at the earliest that`s going to take thousands of years.
This is why we need to find out as much as possible about what`s out there through every possible means ie. though interpherometers, large telescopes and large space telescopes. This is why the James Webb space telescope is so important if the Hubble Telescope is able to image extrasolar planets just what what will James Webb be able to do.

Comments on: Humans do it quickly

By: Fred Willett

By: Gary Warburton