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Comment by kevin_thibedeau | Hacker News Reader

Gateway is also a trial run for conducting operations at a Mars/Phobos/Diemos station.

But then you've got to ask why would we want an orbital Mars/Phobos/Deimos station?

Because Elon.

Snark aside: the goal is Mars because it might be possible to colonize the planet and to have a place that acts as a reserve for humanity should shit really hit the fan (i.e. WW3).

The moon isn't suitable as much for that purpose due to a complete lack of any atmosphere and because it's too close to Earth.

That’s not Elon’s plan. He’s too smart for that shit and wants to aerobrake down to the surface where there is abundant CO2 and probably H2O somewhere to make fuel for the return trip.

That's surface habitation, not an orbital station around the planet or one of its moons.

The problem with using a space station as a waypoint on the way to and from the surface of a remote body is that it make the mission more expensive. For example, the Lunar Gateway increases the delta-v requirement by 15-20% (can't remember exact number) compared to a more direct mission. Which then, all else being equal, increases the total mission cost by much more than 15-20% because the rocket equation always wins. And that's just the actual visit, we're not even considering the cost of putting the station there in the first place.

So I keep going back to, why a space station? If we're going to spend all that extra money on turning hydrogen and oxygen into hot water, why put it toward a space station out in the middle of nowhere instead of, say, more time or more equipment on the surface of the body?

Also, IIRC, none of Elon's proposed mission architectures for going to Mars involve an orbital station. And, while SpaceX did get the Artemis lander contract, they weren't involved in the decision to have a Lunar Gateway.

The Lunar Gateway exists so that SLS and Orion have a way to get to the Moon, because with it SLS can’t get into LLO and return to Earth, so they need another craft to finish the trip and a place to meet up with that craft. A reasonable question might be why not make Starship HLS act as its own gateway but then you start getting into why is SLS and Orion even needed.

Mars isn’t exactly habitable either. Not to mention the myriad of issues we face even getting there, let alone thriving.

Read the book A City On Mars recently which had a lot of interesting concerns not widely discussed in the pro space colonization community : https://www.acityonmars.com/. Highly recommended.

That is a terrible book that starts with the premise that it isn’t possible or desirable. d then arranges its arguments to come to that conclusion. But it turns out that making solar cells on the mean is feasible.

Yes, the book has a clear point of view. That said, it's not subtle at all, and they're very clear about their bias. I'd rather a clearly defined bias than one that is hidden from view or some half-hearted attempt at "bothsiding" the argument.

I felt they had some very good points, though, and I don't see any progress on the major blockers to any sort of large scale extra-planetary colonization. I hadn't considered the issues with procreation discussed in the book, for example--that's kind of a huge issue if we want to have any sort of self-sustaining population outside of this earth!

If any faction is on Mars during WW3, there’s a nuke landing there 6 months after the show is over here.

Only if WW3 happens during a transfer window.

True, the flight duration will vary depending on conditions. :)

Even if WW3 were to happen, I'm not sure it could let Earth be in a worse state than Mars for supporting human life.

It won't be. Even an extinction level asteroid or comet impact will be easier to handle on a planet with breathable atmosphere, water, and other resources. Colonizing Antarctica is a few orders of magnitude easier than Mars and we've barely progressed with that. Still, Mars would require much more self-sufficiency than we've ever attempted. It's worth the effort to expand human exploration.

> Colonizing Antarctica is a few orders of magnitude easier than Mars and we've barely progressed with that

I hear this somewhat often, and I find it a bit disingenuous since it's not like we're trying that hard to colonize Antarctica, we're mostly preserving it as well as we can, no? And the existing Antarctic bases aren't total hellholes or anything, AFAIK the larger ones are relatively normal spaces with power and normal food and heated water.

I do agree with the overall point though for sure.

The same considerations apply to Mars.

Hence the "Reds" vs. "Greens" in the KSR Mars trilogy.

I always found it amusing that KSR's Greens were the side that would have in effect have destroyed the natural environment of Mars (by terraforming it), unlike our Greens who in general want to preserve the environment.

I think that's the point? :-)

The Reds want to preserve the environment and the Greens want to completely change it...

It's kinda poetic that, on Earth, Greens are sometimes accused of being Reds in disguise ;)

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