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Why not build the settlement in advance of the first landing? (piefed.social)
submitted 1 day ago* by to c/mars@discuss.tchncs.de
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Sending people to Mars, keeping them alive there, and bringing them back (optional) is hard.

Sending robots to Mars is easier. It's been done in 1997 and artificial intelligence and robotics have made major strides since.

A semi-autonomous* settlement with life support should be built before we send people there. This will save a lot of time and make the mission far more likely to succeed than if we treat it like a camping trip and make astronauts set their own "tents" up.

* with high-level operations being managed remotely, but real-time operations requiring automation due to the unavoidably high ping between Earth and Mars

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[–] [S] 2 points 1 day ago

Good points - which is why I suggested working on setting things up BEFORE sending people there, to avoid a Mark Watney situation. (A backup ascent vehicle would be nice.)

And yeah, we will likely see a permanent Moon base a lot sooner than a Mars settlement (hopefully within the next decade thanks to the Artemis program), and this post is speculative at best.

And yes, these things WILL take astronomical (heh) amounts of resources, at least at first. And for a while at least, the only people going there - and back - will be professional astronauts.

However, I think it's possible. Probably not with current technology, but within less than a century of sufficient research and development it's hard to tell.

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