The first world that humans should inhabit beyond the Earth is the Moon, not Mars. Here’s how to terraform our lunar neighbor.
Terraforming the moon isn’t possible. There is no atmosphere. The article is using the term terraforming wrong. It specifically means changing an entire planet. Building a base with a greenhouse isn’t terraforming.
Easier to live on? Definitely. Easier to terraform? No way. The moon is too small to hold onto an atmosphere, so humans would forever be bubble bound on the moon. Mars has tons of problems, but terraforming is possible at least.
not to mention the fact that their bodies would get totally messed up. imagine a kid raised on the moon from birth - their bones would be super weak and there is no way they could come to earth.
Do we even know what would happen to your spine if you grew up there?
We don’t have any health data all on gravity, except at 1G and at 0G. For all we know people raised at 0.5G will have superpowers compared to us.
Could also be an issue on Mars. The TV series The Expanse is pretty realistic scifi in general, and Martians need to be top athletic soldiers to be able to endure Earth’s gravity in it
Both places are incredibly hostile to humans and will require a massive amount of resources to change that.
Both have their advantages and disadvantages.
Saying one is better than the other and implying that terraforming either of them will be anything but a centuries long process is click-bate nonsense.
I always just assumed it’d be easier because it’s closer…
Yes, the moon is closer. On average it is 1,000 times closer than mars but you only need about 2.3X the rocket power (DeltaV: Moon: 2,635m/s vs Mars: 6,268m/s ) to get there compared to the moon.
But they are both far enough away that is doesn’t really matter.
A colony in either place cannot rely on outside assistance to come and help them.
But they are both far enough away that is doesn’t really matter.
The difference is huge. The moon is practically right next door to us (384 megameters). Mars closest point to Earth is 54000 megameters.
It’s like having a friend living 384 meters down the road vs living 54-150 kilometers away.
Yes but the power to get to Mars isn’t 1000% more than the moon though.
Mars has an atmosphere, the moon doesn’t. So an effort to terraform Mars would be more fruitful than the Moon.
Right. So the trip to set up shop on the moon would be a little less than half as expensive as the one to set up shop on Mars. Since they’re both far enough away to be necessarily independent, I just assumed the closer cheaper one.
Not really. The extra thrust involved would be a rounding error in the total costs.
If I need a buy car to drive to the shops to get food, the extra added cost in fuel if the shop is 10 km away vs 30 km away is nothing compared to the cost of the car.
if the shop is 10 km away vs 30 km away
It’s nothing at all like that. The moon is 384 megameters away. Mars is 54000 to 150000 megameters away, depending on orbits.
So it would be like 384 meters vs 54-150 kilometers.
Escaping the gravity well on the moon is also much cheaper.
[In terms of infrastructure and accessibility, it’s really no contest. The Moon is closer, always has a view of Earth, can exchange signals and deliverables hundreds of times more quickly than can be exchanged between Earth and Mars, and is easier to land on and take off from. Certain infrastructure could be easily shared between the Earth and the Moon, such as the internet, whereas Mars would likely, due to its remote nature, need its own standalone infrastructure.]
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Moon regolith is pretty nasty stuff. It’s chemically reduced due to the lack of O2 to react with, and becomes corrosive when exposed to moisture. The absence of atmosphere, means that sharp edges of the dust particles aren’t rounded off by erosion, making the dust/soil particularly abrasive. It’s also positively charged, so sticks to everything.
None of that is insurmountable, but it does stack up mitigation costs.
