Mars does not have a magnetosphere. Any discussion of humans ever settling the red planet can stop right there, but of course it never does. Do you have a low-cost plan for, uh, creating a gigantic active dynamo at Mars’s dead core? No? Well. It’s fine. I’m sure you have some other workable, sustainable plan […]

By Albert Burneko

9:00 AM EDT on September 11, 2024

Mars does not have a magnetosphere. Any discussion of humans ever settling the red planet can stop right there, but of course it never does. Do you have a low-cost plan for, uh, creating a gigantic active dynamo at Mars’s dead core? No? Well. It’s fine. I’m sure you have some other workable, sustainable plan for shielding live Mars inhabitants from deadly solar and cosmic radiation, forever. No? Huh. Well then let’s discuss something else equally realistic, like your plan to build a condo complex in Middle Earth.

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  • acosmichippo@lemmy.worldEnglish
    32·
    3 months ago

    just landing on mars? nah that’ll happen soon. settling it on a long term basis is a whole other matter though.

    • hackerwacker@lemmy.ml
      87·
      3 months ago

      We can land corpses or soon-corpses on Mars sure. Getting people there and back reliably and in good shape is going to be extremely difficult if not completely impossible. And the benefit is near zero.

      • acosmichippo@lemmy.worldEnglish
        6·
        3 months ago

        difficult yes, of course. impossible, not even close. NASA’s goal is by the 2030s - even if you don’t believe that timeline which would be fair, the technology is well within our reach.

      • 4am@lemm.ee
        3·
        3 months ago

        Every time we do it we learn from it. That’s nowhere near zero.