I am amazed at the amount of hype and enthusiasm that the prospects of manned missions or even bases on Mars and Moon cause among the general population.
It should be obvious to anyone that the settlement of Mars and Moon distracts attention and resources from real exploration and exploitation of "space" outside Earth.
Mars and Moon are planets. We know how to live on planets. We know advantages and disadvantages. For settlement, Mars and Moon combine the worst disadvantages of planets with no advantages to speak of.
We get no essential diference between living there and here on Earth - except at hugely increased cost in labor and lives. There are no easily-available resources there, no wood or oil to burn initially, probably no or few radioactives to use in nuclear reactors - due to the smaller planet's size. Probably few metals in general and no oil and gas to easily produce plastics.
We will not learn anything new there compared to what we learn establishing a colony on Earth in some inhosplitable place at much smaller cost.
The reason for humanity to spread so that a catastrophe on Earth does not wipe us out is a valid one. But going to Mars or Moon are the worst choices because such colonies would be small and non-self-sufficient for much longer than if they were established elsewhere.
One of the worst features of the living there that nobody seems to think of is gravity. It's too low and there is no efficient way to increase it.
At the same time it's high enough to make resource-gathering expensive and transport of bulk materials to and from space prohibitive.
People experience hugely negative health effects from living in low gravity. Even if somehow humans can adapt to the low gravity - only descendats of those who already have proper genes, they will not be able to come back to Earth and live here. We will just split the humanity into pieces instead of spreading it around.
Any one with half a brain can realise that the way off-earth for humanity is not the planets but the Asteroid Belt.[/i]
Rotating habitats can provide the exact Earth gravity in a wide variety of configurations. Cylinder, torus, or just a room at the end of a stick with a counterweight on the other end - add some spin and voila - earth's gravity!
The abundant astheroid material can be used to construct yards-thick shielding against the space radiation.
The cheap and abundant solar energy can be obtained by creating enormous solar-mirrors - tens of miles wide and composed of hair-thin alluminized mylar.
Such mirrors would be impossible to construct on a planet, even at Moon gravity gravity and on Mars there are also winds. Besides, any planet-based solar station would be pointed directly at the Sun only a fraction of the day and will not see the sun half of the time.
In space, you just focus a solar mirror on a solar panel or a water tank of a steam turbine and you have cheap stable electricity.
Focus it some more and you can melt any piece of rock, even the size of the mountain. Spin such a molten mountain and the layers will separate into distinct elements to be used at need or formed into habitats, etc.
Space is unlimited, energy is unlimited, material is unlimited, the gravity can vary from 1 Earth for living to many times that for centrifuges to zero for indistrial processes.
Low-thrust high-endurance plasma engines and solar sails can provide enough motive power to ensure most of the non-urgent transportation needs.
All kinds of modular habitats can be easily developed. We have experience with submarines already. Such habitats can join at will or split away and join other collections. The political problem of seccesion while staying in place geographically would not exist.
If you do not like the rules of the "state" you live in, just "emigrate" and take your "land" with you. Any kind of society organisation could be tried without coming into conflict with any other group of people.
Real-estate could be aquired/created without crowding other people out - just buy a brand-new extension module for your private piece. You have more acreage while none of your neighbours has less.
There could be no scarcity of raw materials for millenia. The trade would be based not on the historic accident of sitting on a natural supply of resources but only on variability of intellectual capital - specialisation in technology, research, intelligence, talents and inclinations.
Of course you would not hear such plans from politicians.
What do you think?
miko
