Space/Science — HabitableZone

Space/Science » in reply to ppm?! Those Numbers are near 0.01%

Ah, I understand where you're coming from now..
Marsbug — (archived)

... I was thinking of an antartica style research ( and maybe a little billionare tourism) base, you're talking colonisation and eventual terraforming.

I'm not trying to deny that mars has the 'slam dunk' n terms of resources, but I was thinking of the kind of small outposts(s) we might build in the next 50 years, which would be more interested in minimising the amount they needed to bring from earth rather than total resource independance. Using lunar O, H and maybe N and C (if there are concentrated deposits more accesable than the trace amounts in the regolith) such a base could greatly reduce their dependancy and running costs for water, oxygen, fuel and maybe organics.

I think concentrating on the moon and its abiotic mysteries and beauty(near term) would give us a break from the search for alien life, and our investigations into the origins of terrestrial life and the solar system could continue by investigations of asteroids and comets.

If we are going to talk about eventual large scale colonisation efforts, ecopoesis and terraforming then the scarcity of resources on the moon make mars an infinitely better option, but today the time for such dreams seems as far off as ever!

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