> I should have added unsurmountable reason. With that, everything you've listed was overcome 53 years ago when we set foot on the Moon, aside from food.
Food is the easiest of everything mentioned. You just send them with enough food to last a while, and then send more
> But within those 53 years we've grown food in space
No, we've grown it in small controlled environments that are in space. We do not regularly grow crops in space to feed astronauts. The spatial requirements are too large to do it on the ISS.
> a far less hospitable environment than the Moon and especially Mars, and even achieved a few other useful things along the way as well.
They're pretty much equally hostile. On the moon the ground is super toxic dust. Mars doesn't really have soil like The Martian suggests. You might be able to make it work but again, not without a huge controlled environment.
> It won't be easy of course, but it's entirely possible. And has been for decades. Wernher von Braun, architect of the Apollo program, was the first individual to lay out technical plans for the colonization of Mars.
The only way we 'colonize' mars is by shipping them an absurd amount of crap and commit to the fact that they will do nothing productive aside from not dying there. They won't be able to farm. They won't be able to build domes or underground lairs. They'll sit in their starship heavies to hide from radioactive death beams and eat prepackaged food while a solar panel outside keeps the lights on.
> In his introduction to The Mars Project, von Braun stated that his study was not yet complete. He said that he had omitted the details of some topics that would need to be addressed further, including the eccentric orbit of Mars, interplanetary astronavigation, meteor showers, and the long-term effects of spaceflight on humans.[2]
> There are other shortcomings in The Mars Project that von Braun could not have anticipated in 1948. He had not planned on any uncrewed exploratory missions to Mars taking place before the first human expedition, and he had not foreseen the technological advances that would take place, or the development of robot spacecraft.[4] It was not until 1965 that the uncrewed Mariner 4 spacecraft found that the density of the Martian atmosphere was only one tenth of what had been estimated, making it clear that the huge winged gliders planned by von Braun would not have had enough lift to be able to descend safely onto the surface of Mars.[1] The danger of high energy solar and cosmic radiation beyond low Earth orbit was not known in 1948. The Van Allen radiation belts were not discovered until 1958, and von Braun did not plan for the protection of the crews from such radiation, whether in space or on the Martian surface.[1]
Food is the easiest of everything mentioned. You just send them with enough food to last a while, and then send more
> But within those 53 years we've grown food in space
No, we've grown it in small controlled environments that are in space. We do not regularly grow crops in space to feed astronauts. The spatial requirements are too large to do it on the ISS.
> a far less hospitable environment than the Moon and especially Mars, and even achieved a few other useful things along the way as well.
They're pretty much equally hostile. On the moon the ground is super toxic dust. Mars doesn't really have soil like The Martian suggests. You might be able to make it work but again, not without a huge controlled environment.
> It won't be easy of course, but it's entirely possible. And has been for decades. Wernher von Braun, architect of the Apollo program, was the first individual to lay out technical plans for the colonization of Mars.
The only way we 'colonize' mars is by shipping them an absurd amount of crap and commit to the fact that they will do nothing productive aside from not dying there. They won't be able to farm. They won't be able to build domes or underground lairs. They'll sit in their starship heavies to hide from radioactive death beams and eat prepackaged food while a solar panel outside keeps the lights on.
Let's look at von Braun.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mars_Project
> In his introduction to The Mars Project, von Braun stated that his study was not yet complete. He said that he had omitted the details of some topics that would need to be addressed further, including the eccentric orbit of Mars, interplanetary astronavigation, meteor showers, and the long-term effects of spaceflight on humans.[2]
> There are other shortcomings in The Mars Project that von Braun could not have anticipated in 1948. He had not planned on any uncrewed exploratory missions to Mars taking place before the first human expedition, and he had not foreseen the technological advances that would take place, or the development of robot spacecraft.[4] It was not until 1965 that the uncrewed Mariner 4 spacecraft found that the density of the Martian atmosphere was only one tenth of what had been estimated, making it clear that the huge winged gliders planned by von Braun would not have had enough lift to be able to descend safely onto the surface of Mars.[1] The danger of high energy solar and cosmic radiation beyond low Earth orbit was not known in 1948. The Van Allen radiation belts were not discovered until 1958, and von Braun did not plan for the protection of the crews from such radiation, whether in space or on the Martian surface.[1]