Mars by 2020?

gene therapy? or mucking about the life of babies who have no say in the matter?

not thought about it before but what if the babies grow up to resent not being left to live on Earth?

I always hoped to see man on Mars in my lifetime. But every month or so there's a new hurdle it seems: Be it higher radiation than expected, more difficult to extract usable water than expected or the unusuability of the native soil.
It is a pity but I believe, as others have said, that there are more viable projects: Moonbase, Lunar telescope, expanded ISS etc. I mean all these are doable and, in this day and age, be profitable. Let's build another space telescope like the James Webb but in the visible light spectrum. Look at those wonderful Hubble images and how they inspired a new interest in space.
What we need is conclusive proof of extra-terrestrial life (Even a microbe would do. Maybe detecting artificial gasse arouls an extra-solar planet . Again, think how mush it would ignite the imagination af the next generation of potential astrophysicists.

Fathom wrote: »

Confused. Clarify please.

if gene therapy works on adults they can give permission to go ahead. Babies or unborn can not give permission. supposing for example gene therapy on an unborn child can allow them to be born with a prehensile tail to help live in space ... but also cause weakness in the legs so walking upright in gravity is impossible.

should it be done in the name of space travel or not?

oh here it is:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b09574pc/horizon-2017-mars-a-travellers-guide

There isn't much point in going to Mars I don't think. It's a large rock. I think we should do a base on the moon first. A large one that could hold 200 people or so similar to the one on Antarctic.

The moon base would be great for public interest and for science. But there's no way we could make it an independent eco system to the Earth. I don't think we could raise generations of humans with no re-supply from Earth.


Could we ever make a base on the moon which could exist without resupply from Earth for 100 years or more?
Could children be raised and would they get all the essential nutrients?


If we can't exist permenently on the moons and planets then perhaps we should send those Star Chips to other worlds. They're very good, you can send them in large numbers very cheaply, and they can be sent at 20% of c, which gets them to other worlds very quickly.


The asteriods are very spaced out, so you can't visit them in the sense they aren't all piled up in one spot. They're probably very spaced out. Man.

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

Also the lack of water means the dust is probably as sharp as the stuff on the moon.

sharp stuff the size of dust would indicate the presence of water rather than the lack of it if there is an atmosphere present, only larger particles are smoothed by water.