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Asked by anon-256612 on 11 Jun 2020.
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Martin Coath answered on 11 Jun 2020: last edited 11 Jun 2020 6:49 am
By ‘live on’ do you mean permanently; not just for a few days, or a week, or a month; you mean grow up, and grow food, and have children and grandchildren? Maybe we can call this ‘colonise’ rather than just ‘live on’. The difference is huge!
Twelve people have already lived on other planets (the Moon) for a day or two. It happened a long time ago and we haven’t been exactly rushing to get out there again 😉 Sadly only four of these are still alive to tell us what it was like. But many of them have written books and given interviews which you can get on the internet. It is very interesting to hear what they say.
My guess is it will take at least another 30-50 years to establish a living space on the Moon or Mars. After that maybe another 30-50 years before anyone could live there without constantly being supplied from Earth. There are some *huge* and highly interesting technical problems to be solved first. This is something you could contribute to if you you were keen.
Of course this will only happen if people think it is important. Do you think it is important?
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Julian Onions answered on 11 Jun 2020:
I suspect the time would be a few decades – I would like to think it would be quicker, there isn’t reallty a lot stopping us if we wanted to do it, I mean we have been to the moon before, and the US are hoping to go back by 2024. However there has to be a good reason to do it, usually economic, or national pride or similar. So fi there is an economic reason, and people could make money from living on the moon or Mars, then there would be much more interest. It has echoes in why did we sail across the oceans – not usually just to see what was there, but more the hope of riches to be found – either gold or foods or similar.
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Andrew Yool answered on 11 Jun 2020: last edited 11 Jun 2020 1:03 pm
As Martin has already said, there’s a big difference between visiting somewhere briefly, and living there (semi-)permanently. Of the other planets (and moons) available to us in our solar system, all have a number of serious hurdles to clear before humans can live there permanently, and a few (e.g. Venus) have big enough problems that preclude humans even visiting. In particular, none have an atmosphere that is close to being suitable (most have nothing we would call an atmosphere), so we’d always have to live in habitats of some kind (or underground). There are also issues of remoteness (i.e. little solar energy), high radiation (e.g. Jupiter’s moons), or extreme low temperature. All of these problems make it difficult to live there for a prolonged period, and all require you to take a lot of stuff with you to do so. That said, the Moon is close enough to be quite a practical place to try out ways of living on (or, more likely, *in*) some of these places. It is also believed to have features like lava tubes where we could live underground, and resources like polar water ice deposits that would make it a little more self-sufficient. But I’d still not expect people to be living routinely on the Moon for decades to come. And while we might visit our next best hope, Mars, sometime after the middle of this century, living there without needing to be constantly resupplied from Earth will take a lot longer. But, thinking about our technological history, even high hurdles do have a record of being cleared. Anyway, do you think you’ll be living anywhere else in our solar system in your lifetime?
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Aisling Ryan answered on 11 Jun 2020:
Wow, that’s a really interesting question!
Honestly I have no idea, but as far as an educated guess goes I don’t think it’s really possible at all! There are experiments in preparation by NASA where astronauts are seeing if they can sustain life outside of Earth (on Mars) and these findings will be extremely valuable to give us an idea of how possible it is. But in my opinion we live on Earth because this planet is the best suited to our needs. We need oxygen to breathe, and water to drink, and soil to grow crops etc., and Earth (so far) is the only planet where we can do all of this (i.e. live) comfortably! I don’t think it’s impossible for a small group of humans to live on another planet, as long as there is air, water and food, but I think in terms of a large population we need the right environment, which is Earth 🙂
Comments
anon-256612 commented on :
Thank you, I meant permanently.