Category: BLOG

Or – Robots: Cheap Labor, Companionship, Or Technical Marvels?

Almost one hundred years ago, Fritz Lang created one of the greatest movies, if not in all of film, certainly in science fiction. A masterpiece of the “silent era”, Metropolis delivered a groundbreaking movie experience in story, theme, and special effects, to name a few.

Anytime is a good time to talk about Metropolis, and I would encourage you to see the film if you ever get a chance. (I believe it’s available on several free streaming services like Pluto, Xumi, Tubi, etc. or to rent on Prime.) But today I’d like to consider how the robot was portrayed as an instrument of destruction, used by the ruling class to sow chaos and destruction. Her/Its impersonation of the human Maria drove the workers into a frenzy and established the robot as a source of evil.

[Image Credit: https://phpmyadmin.muycomputerpro.com/art/practice-exercises/original-metropolis-poster.html]

Just seven years earlier, Capek’s play R.U.R. (Rossum’s Universal Robots), credited with creating the term robot from the Czech word for “forced labor”, treated the robots as products to be worked “to death”. Ultimately, when they learned to feel pain, they rebelled violently.

[Image credit: https://http2.mlstatic.com/D_NQ_NP_627793-MLU77845676222_072024-O.webp]

So, all those representations were spawned in a different time. And there have been robots in films ever since, really too many to count. Many we like. Who doesn’t like Robby in Forbidden Planet, or even Sonny in iRobot?

A final, more current reference. In the opening to Season One, Episode Two of Star Trek Picard, the “previously on Picard” leader portrays the crew of a defense outpost making fun of a synthetic human, an android of sorts, but not capable of human emotion. They tell a joke he can’t get, instruct him to smile, etc. Basically, bully the less than human artifact. The scene says more about the crew than the android. In the end, he destroys them all and himself. It wasn’t the bullying, but nonetheless, a discomforting scene revealing human nature.

So I wonder how much of their portrayal in film reflects how we treat them.

Which brings me to the tagline of this post: Cheap Labor, Companionship, or a Technical Challenge. In the movies mentioned, we treated the robots as a tool, labor, a device for our purposes. Granted, iRobot treated the robots well; even so, free labor—no agency was granted. Could a robot refuse to deliver a package, or empty the garbage, or …

In my post on June 4, 2026: Robots: Why Do They Need To Look Like Us?, we reviewed several reasons we might want them to be humanoid. I wonder how much of their human-like form engenders anthropomorphic sensibilities? Do we unknowingly feel for them as we would a human, even if their actions and demeanor result from sophisticated programming? Do we feel that way about our car, or our lawnmower, or our household appliances? All just tools to get the job done. When they break, we fix them or replace them.

How will we treat our robots?

Maybe it depends on whether they’re merely devices that provide cheap, reliable labor? Or are they companions that can enrich our lives? Or as we may find out, humanoid robots are really a contrivance and only suited to replace us in work that has been designed for humans to complete—a technical experiment. If we redesigned the work, would we even need humanoid robots? And if we don’t make them in human form, would our objection, resistance, fear that they’re taking something away, simply fall into the same bucket that any new technology does that changes work?

I wish I had the answers, but I’m glad I have the questions. Something to think about as we move forward into the brave new world.

In the meantime, leave a comment and let me know what you think about the introduction of robots into our lives and society.

Thanks for stopping by.

“… You built me as well as you could … you built in the elements of self-development—factors you would not understand if I explained them to you for a thousand years, but whose existence you cannot doubt. Now I am in a position to produce a superior machine, one that will devote itself to the wider fields of truth and knowledge.”

“The site … has an abundant supply of water for cooling purposes. There must also be a highly developed human technological community at hand to supply the labor and skills I need.”

Colossus

D. F. Jones

1966

Prescient demands from an AI, built by humans, and now our overlord.

Impressed that D. F. anticipated the demand for vast amounts of water for cooling. In the book, Colossus demands the evacuation and leveling of the Isle of Wight. So, potential environmental destruction seems to be an attribute of large AI structures since the 60s. Who knew?

[Image Credit: Amazon.com : colossus the forbin project movie]

Colossus may not be well known, but I’ll bet Skynet is. The former wanted to control us; the latter wanted to obliterate us. Regardless, it was a bad idea to put them in charge of the nuclear weapons.

With Colossus, the machine becomes sentient and, in its evaluation of humanity, determines we are too emotional and irrational to be trusted with weapons of mass destruction. Its solution: subjugate the humans to protect us from ourselves.

This is similar in theme to iRobot. In the movie, VIKI (Virtual Interactive Kinetic Intelligence) concludes that beyond the Three Laws of Robotics (Three Laws of Robotics – Wikipedia), humans are self-destructive and to achieve the safety of humanity (Asimov’s later Zero-Th Law) they must be controlled. Thankfully for the City of Chicago, where the film takes place, VIKI did not control any weapons

[Image Credit: jX2zXbxRrqAUhwRDUV0EMXaOEUj.jpg (510×755)]

Skynet, on the other hand, saw us as a threat, that we’d turn it off—an existential threat. So it took action to protect itself and launched Judgement Day.

A bright spot in this sub-genre of science fiction where the AI has control of the nukes is WarGames (1983) where the supercomputer concludes that:

“A strange game. The only winning move is not to play.” 

Now that’s the AI we might want to have around—the lesson it learns generates wisdom.

But those are movies, and putting the AI in charge of the nukes drives the tension and the story, providing a situation where the characters needed to act to regain control.

Do I believe the US government is going to hand over control of our nuclear weapons to an AI? I sure hope not, and it probably won’t happen.

But what if we think of these cautionary tales as metaphors for civilization generally, and our lives specifically? Do we want to hand over control of important parts of our lives to a “machine”? What about biases, known or unknown, in its code? What was its learning dataset? What algorithms or prompts or demands guide the results it generates?

I’m not an expert in AI by any measure, but like any guidance I receive, I’ll start from a position of skepticism. So for now—the jury’s out. Useful intelligence or a useful tool? Better or just faster? How do we know it’s right?

Watch for future posts as we discuss some of these questions in more detail.

In the meantime, leave a comment and let me know what you think and how AI is affecting your life.

Thanks for stopping by.

In one of my favorite novels, The Caves of Steel, a novel that consistently ranks at the top of various “best of…” lists, the main character, a police detective, is paired with a robot that can pass as human to solve a murder. In the story’s course, the question is asked: why do we need humanoid robots?

That is the question before us in this blog post.

By the way, I highly recommend that you read The Caves of Steel. Even if you rarely read science fiction, it’s a spellbinding murder mystery as well. I would almost bet you won’t guess the ending.

Anyway, back to the question of humanoid robots. Why do robots need to replicate human activity? There are continuing examples of robots that have completed human tasks, often more efficiently or more quickly. But is a robot that can run really the most efficient way to travel 13-1/2 miles, as was recently reported that a robot beat the human half-marathon record? Is a human robot really the best way to fold laundry?

In factories, the robots don’t look like humans. In this fictional video, the robots building humanoid robots are not humanoid

(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aaWfVz25R0A, 3-minute view).

And robots building cars don’t look like humans. (Image Credit: https://fordauthority.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/ford-chicago-Assembly-Plant-006-1024×683.jpg)

Maybe we need robots to look like us so we can relate to them. Humanoid robots can operate in a human-sized world. They can ride in our cars, climb stairs, fit through doors and, depending on their design, respond to inquiries and instructions in familiar ways—they can coexist in our world.

On the other hand, that may spark objections to using them: they look and feel more like something taking our jobs, our human nature, our achievements. New technology always generates change, but somehow this feels different.

Science fiction films are replete with ways, good and bad, that humanoid robots interact with humans. Most people are familiar with The Terminator movies, which interestingly had two versions of the “killer robot”—one evil, one kind of good. But then there’s Robin Williams’s Bicentennial Man, where a humanoid robot grows ever more human. A kinder, gentler vision of a humanoid robot.

But there are the ones that are just disturbing, viscerally objectionable for some I would imagine. In Ex Machina, I found the treatment of the robots unsettling. I’ll bet most people were not okay with the Oscar Isaac character, even though his perversions were directed at machines. I wonder who sympathized with Ava and her action of escaping into the real world.

Probably little known is Maid Droid. A perfectly simple application of a humanoid robot: house-cleaning. But one owner is an abuser and the other a lover. It’s not the best movie, but I think it depicts a key understanding for me: how we treat humanoid robots, particularly as they get more sophisticated, might say more about us than about the robots.

And finally, I have to mention Cherry 2000, starring Melanie Griffith. (Available on a variety of streaming services.) In the beginning, the male lead is perfectly happy with his robot wife, until she short-circuits in a kitchen accident. To recapture what he lost, he heads out on a quest. Well, he meets Melanie and learns the real deal is better than the best robot. (Image Credit: https://amazingmovieposters.blogspot.com/2015/09/cherry-2000-1987.html)

In the end, robots are here and getting more “human capable” with every new version. Science fiction might provide some insight into avoiding the worst of the changes we’re most definitely going to experience.

Leave a comment and let me know what you think.

Thanks for stopping by.

Welcome back to my blog for the year 2026. In the beginning of the year, we began discussing topics related to developing a permanent presence on the Red Planet. The plan was that each month I would post a short essay about a particular relevant topic.

Well, that became a little premature as SpaceX changed its focus from Mars to the Moon.

Artemis II is complete. NASA cancelled the Gateway (bummer – I loved the concept of a cis-lunar way station). Artemis III is planned for next year. Starship completed its latest launch. Lots going on, but we’ll see where we are with all that next year.

So, in good Sci Fi fashion, “Navigator, change course to new heading.”

Let’s talk about AI and Robots. I’m not an expert in either, but I’ll share my thoughts and perspective. If nothing else, I’ll share some books and movies that will highlight how some Science Fiction has addressed this broad topic.

Here’s what I’m thinking for the next several months:

Human Form Robots: Why Do We Need Them?

AI: Don’t Put Them in Charge of the Nuclear Weapons!

Robots: Cheap Labor, Companions, or Technical Marvels?

AI Sentience or Consciousness: Do They Know They’re Artificial?

Robots and Human Activities: What Will We Do with All the Free Time?

Generative AI: Better or Just Faster?

Robot Rights: How Do We Treat Them?

AI Conversations: Real or Imagined?

Robot Unions: What Happens when they Organize

This should be fun. I love research, and digging into Robots and AI means I get to cover a wide swath of our modern society. You never know when you’ll come across an idea or a surprise solution or a cool video.

I hope you will enjoy my posts, and if you’d like to discuss a particular topic or stay connected, please slide over to my Contact page and sign up for my email list to receive advance notice of upcoming stories of aliens, strange worlds, and mysteries on the short fiction tab.

Thank you again for visiting.

Recapping earlier posts: we’ve launched from Earth, in one big ship or 10,000 smaller ones, we’ve completed the six-month plus journey and played 2,000 Scrabble games, and we’ve found a place to live, above ground in a lovely domed city, underground or a combo.

Now that we’re on Mars, what can we get local, or what will we need to ship from Earth. Using a relatively simple search query, “provide a list of the major raw materials used in manufacturing,” I found a short list of ninety-two raw materials that are sourced from mining, drilling, or agriculture: from sand and gravel, to steel and aluminum, to petroleum products, to basic agricultural products. You can see the article and the list here: 92 Examples of Raw Materials – Simplicable.

Now this list is not exhaustive and summarizes some categories (e.g., Rare Earths is comprised of multiple elements), but it’s a place to start. Of the 92 materials listed, 41 are derived from agriculture, fishing, or livestock. We’ll address those in a subsequent post when we tackle the subject of agriculture more broadly. That leaves 51. And of these 51, almost 40 have been identified on Mars. Extraction may be more difficult than on Earth, but they are there.

NASA (and other organizations) are examining what we can extract directly Mars. Generally this is in the category of In-situ Resource Utilization, ISRU for short. Here’s a short video on the topic:

https://youtu.be/zmpQpmhigEY

This is a ~13 minute video but it provides details on the surprising amount of minerals found on Mars and makes the point that the essential elements for a human outpost are there. Good news for the future Martian Miners.

Here is a summary of resources, uses, and what it would take to extract them in an article from NASA: Overview: In-Situ Resource Utilization – NASA

And finally, an organization I was privileged to help with their habitat in 2024, The Mars Society, posts interesting articles and information on all things Mars: The Mars Society, or watch this 16 minute video

Colonizing Mars | The Mammoth Task of Supporting Humans in a Martian Colony | Watch

But one thing we won’t have at first is lumber. Interesting thought—wood might just be the rarest commodity in the universe. Here’s a short 1-minute video where Neil deGrasse Tyson discusses this topic:

https://youtu.be/A6mgYFmTtkA

So, what’s the bottom line, what should we consider when we think about colonizing Mars? Well, with regards to raw materials, we don’t need to ship everything there from Earth. We can re-think how we extract raw materials and process them into final products needed for human settlement. We might not have everything (no fossil fuels as far as we know), but the building blocks are there.

With core science research and advanced engineering, it just might be doable. And who knows, we might just learn something that improves resource utilization right here on our home planet—the ultimate location for ISRU.

Thanks for stopping by.

“… My attention was quickly riveted by a large red star close to the distant horizon. As I gazed upon it I felt a spell of overpowering fascination—it was Mars, the god of war, and for me, a fighting man, it had always held the power of irresistible enchantment. As I gazed at it on that far-gone night it seemed to call across the unthinkable void, to lure me to it, to draw me as the lodestone attracts a particle of iron.”

A Princess of Mars

Edgar Rice Burroughs

1912

Mars—that reddish sparkle in the night sky. Mars—a planet empty (we think), cold, dry, and dusty. Mars—it beckons.

I’ve been reading about Mars for probably as long as I’ve been able to read. I’ve read Edgar Rice Burroughs’s John Carter Mars series more times than I care to admit. In fact, a paper on the series was one of the few A’s I received on an English paper in high school.

Expeditions to our neighbor and the amazing things we’ve learned have kept me just waiting for more: more missions, more progress, and more movies and more books. I even ventured to Southern Utah in 2024 to immerse myself in all things Mars. (You can read about that adventure at Mars Analog 2: An Expedition to the “Martian” Desert.)

And here we are. Robot landers and rovers are hard at work. Orbiting observatories are mapping and analyzing. And maybe, just maybe, we’ll see a human landing in the near future. (I keep my fingers crossed for every Starship launch and can’t wait for the next Artemis missions to the Moon as stepping stones to an expedition to Mars.)

At the risk of sounding obvious, the challenges are legion.

As we proceed through the year, I hope you’ll follow along and that my posts spark some thought on what it would take to get there and what we’ll do when we arrive.

Here are nine top level topics to get us started [with links to last year’s posts and this year’s schedule]:

Rocketry. Getting us off the planet Earth and on our way.

[Go for Launch 10,000 times – W. Steve Wilson]

Transit. Surviving and thriving during the extended trip to Mars.

[It’s A Long Way to Mars – Don’t Forget Scrabble – W. Steve Wilson]

Settlement. Living and working in a hostile environment.

[Life Under a Dome or Underground – W. Steve Wilson]

Resources. Supplying the settlement from Earth or locally.

[We Have a Place to Live. What Now? – W. Steve Wilson]

Agriculture. Feeding the settlers. [March]

Economics. Making the society self-sufficient. [April]

Population. Growing the human presence. [May]

Cultural. Developing a Martian identity. [June]

Politics. Governing the settlement. [July]

So, over the next several months, I’ll share my thoughts on these topics, provide some sources that reveal what’s being done or discussed in these areas, and, of course, make the occasional reference to science fiction movies and books.

(Image: UK First Edition, File:The War of the Worlds first edition.jpg – Wikipedia)

I’ll do my best to be informative and entertaining. If you have a topic, you’d like to cover or have questions as we go, leave a comment, or send me a note using the Contact form.

Buckle up, we are go for launch.

Thanks for stopping by.

Welcome to my blog for the year 2026. Last year we began exploring topics related to settling Mars. In the new year we’ll continue those discussions covering topics that could fall under the question: What do we do when we get there?

This year we’ll continue to take a focused approach and talk about topics related to developing a permanent presence on the Red Planet. Each month I’ll post a more detailed recap of the topic. Along the way, I’ll bring in other sources you can check for more detail, and I’m sure I’ll refer to where and when science fiction tackled the topic. Stay tuned.

This should be fun. I love research, and building a future world on Mars means I get to cover a wide swath of our modern society. You never know when you’ll come across an idea or a surprise solution. So, I’ll share what I discover and hope you find it interesting.

I hope you will enjoy my posts, and if you’d like to discuss a particular topic or stay connected, please slide over to my Contact page. Please join my email list as well to receive advance notice of upcoming stories of aliens, strange worlds, and mysteries on the short fiction tab.

Thank you again for visiting.

Fall has come to the Western Suburbs of Chicago, but it’s still mild enough to sit outside on the patio to enjoy the changing leaves, the birds that over-winter (including the occasional hawk), the late blooming flowers—and the grass that still needs mowing.

On one such day recently, I asked myself: What would it be like to live on Mars where such a simple pleasure, going outside, is not possible? How will we adapt? Can we live inside our whole lives? Even walking on the surface of Mars, you’re still “inside”, in the sense that you’re wearing an environment suit—carrying the life-supporting conditions with you into the harsh, deadly, Martian environment.

Because outside on Mars is not hospitable: essentially a vacuum, no oxygen, freezing cold, harsh radiation, poisonous dust. It makes you wonder why we want to go.

Perhaps that is why so many of the renderings of future cities are pictured as domes, or at least habitats with large windows. One of my favorite science fiction movies (and a favorite Arnold Schwarzenegger movie) is Total Recall (1990, Carolco Pictures). The action spends a lot of time in tunnels, etc., but the vistas are portrayed as spacious, with immense windows.

[Source: OIP.OgoBI0Yvqgw0DFAmpgZZ7AHaD_ (474×255)]

Further, renderings from science fiction artists, even SpaceX, show domed cities, large expansive habitats with open spaces, trees, parks, small buildings, a simulacrum of living outdoors. The cities would be beautiful. Designing them from the ground up would be a unique opportunity, with no existing construction to worry about, lots of open land, etc.

But the technical challenges of protecting the inhabitants would put some constraints on their design. Shielding against radiation, maintaining atmospheric pressure, providing warmth and breathable air, and guarding against the random basketball-sized meteorites that strike Mars daily.

This last issue, I would think, would be of particular concern for a domed city. Now, Mars is a big place with about as much “land area” (no oceans) as the Earth. So, the odds of a large meteorite hitting a city would likely be pretty small. But the results could be catastrophic, so safety protocols will need to be in place.

An alternative would be to move underground. Live in caves or tunnels, natural or constructed. One wonders if we could in fact live without at least some view of the outside. In his classic science fiction/detective novel, The Caves of Steel, Isaac Asimov portrays the entire population of Earth as having an intense, pathological, agoraphobic fear of “outside” from living inside for generations.

But—living underground provides protection, limits construction requirements, and may provide more freedom of movement. But can humans, in fact, forgo living outdoors? It’s easy to find articles, authoritative and not, on the benefits of finding time to live outdoors: stress relief, peace of mind, restocking our microbiome with beneficial microbes, etc. But are the outdoors essential to our wellbeing?

Some designers are suggesting both: live indoors, but have open access to observe the outside and spend time in simulated outdoor spaces. Basically, both the underground option and the dome option.

[Credit: Amazing Architecture, winners-announced-for-marsception-2024-architecture-competition-1.jpg (1100×777)]

And futurists have depicted a myriad of Martian cities designs. Just Google those keywords and you’ll see amazing vistas and futuristic cities.

For me, these future habitats look like a place I could live—maybe. I think I’d still miss walking outside, watching the birds migrate, enjoying the change of seasons. But for some, it could be a wonderland. And for the future native-born Martians, it might not be an issue at all. But then again, Dr. Asimov sent us a cautionary tale about closing ourselves in.

[Graphics Source: futuristic-building-habitat-mars-settlement-from-scifi-novel_31965-113611.jpg (626×313)]

Time will tell.

Are you ready to move? Let me know what you think about living indoors for the rest of your life, tens of millions of miles from Earth, a glass dome away from an environment that wants to kill you.

If you’d like to learn more about what NASA is doing to get ready to put humans on Mars, check out their long-term habitation project: CHAPEA – NASA

SpaceX has some “easily digestible” information in the Mars and Beyond section of their website that you can find here: SpaceX – Mission: Mars

And finally, an organization I was privileged to help with their habitat last year, The Mars Society, posts interesting articles and information on all things Mars: The Mars Society

Thanks for stopping by.

When I first planned this installment of the Mars Beckons blog, I thought I’d be discussing what the astronauts/settlers would do on the way to Mars. Once it’s time to go, about every two years, we’ll see anywhere from four astronauts (the crew size of NASA’s Orion spacecraft) to one-hundred settlers (Elon Musk’s reported passenger compliment on Starship) heading out on a six-month journey to The Red Planet. That’s a long trip and a long time to be in transit.

So—what will they do?

There’s not much information out there. Science and Research. Health and Fitness. Leisure and Relaxation. That’s it. Those are all the details I can find.

To be sure, we’ve learned from the almost twenty-five years (twenty-five years on 11/02/2025) of occupying the International Space Station (ISS) that health and fitness are a must. Six-months of living on the ISS can cause muscle weakness, bone loss, immune deficiencies, etc. Exercise and constant health monitoring are essential. Consider the challenges of six to nine months of transit time to Mars, a year or more in partial gravity (Mars’s gravity is about 38% of Earth’s) and then a six to nine months return trip. The Health and Fitness requirements are compounded.

And of course, we all need time off to recharge, enjoy our personal interests, connect with friends and family, and so on. The first travelers to Mars will need the same. But how will that work with twenty-minute delays in communication, limited space (and mass) for non- critical materials and supplies? And you better enjoy the conversation of your fellow travelers.

These are all topics that could deserve their own blog post series. If you’re interested in a more detailed discussion of these topics, I’d suggest checking out the NASA site for the ISS at International Space Station – NASA.

But I can imagine, as any science fiction fan can, how they might feel in the confines of a steel box, traveling twenty-five thousand miles an hour, tens of millions of miles from Earth. My research led me to consider the “steel box” aspect of the trip.

For NASA’s Orion spaceship, the confines are just that—confining. The craft is approximately sixteen feet in diameter, ten feet tall, and tapered. That’s smaller than my living room, and I don’t live in a large house. Imagine spending six months in that space—with three other people. [Image Credit: Orion Interior – NASA] I would find that claustrophobic and anxiety-laden. At the very least, I’d need to get away from my fellow travelers and have some “alone time.” I’m pretty sure I would not be a suitable candidate for the trip. Would you?

Now that space won’t carry all their supplies, plus the room and equipment for the essential activities “detailed” previously. The information I can find is that Orion will dock with a larger habitat module, still under design. We’ll see what that module looks like when details become available. [Note: if anybody has found an early rendering, let me know in the comments.]

Then there’s Starship. A larger spacecraft, maybe accommodating maybe 20. One schematic shows areas for sleeping quarters, equipment storage, etc.

[Note: this is not a SpaceX rendering. Image Credit: All+Decks+of+SpaceX+100-passenger+Starship+design+by+Ace+%26+Michel+Lamontagne.jpg (1371×1673)]

Starship is still in development, and the component planned to travel to Mars is not finalized; that’s years away. But that’s not to say we can’t consider what might be on the ship. Unlike Orion, docked to a larger habitat module, which will not land on Mars, Starship is expected to do just that. We can expect then that Starship will have space and equipment for the journey to Mars, plus what the astronauts will need to land and operate on Mars.

One futurist has prepared a short (~13 minutes) video about what Starship might look like. [Video URL: https://youtu.be/XC3dwEVxYEM]. Although Elon Musk has mentioned one-hundred people per trip, the video suggests it will probably be closer to twenty. But the ship in the video looks spacious and accommodating.

Of course, movies have contemplated the interiors of Mars-bound spaceships for years. Their design aesthetic

is interesting to ponder. I’ve always loved the aesthetics of the 50s. Plenty of room to conduct experiments. Like today, 1959’s The Angry Red Planet contemplated doing scientific experiments.

Plus plenty of room and time to have interesting discussions, when you’re not pressing all the buttons, turning all the knobs, and pulling all the levers.

[Image Credits: https://www.bing.com/images/search?q=Angry+Red+Planet+Faint+Nora+Hayden&FORM=IRIBEP https://tse4.mm.bing.net/th/id/OIP.iK3ov0FKwI9kTGjCyjnZlgHaEL?r=0&rs=1&pid=ImgDetMain&o=7&rm=3]

As we move forward in time, the sets become more “futuristic” but are of a type that the Dragon craft sports.

Sleek. Clean. No knobs and buttons. This aesthetic actually isn’t that new. Just nine years after The Angry Red Planet, we got 2001: A Space Odyssey.

[Image Credit: 2001-A-Space-Odyssey-57.00-Jupiter-Mission-Exercise-1340×602.jpg (1340×602)]

Which is of a type reflected in the movie The Martian, from the novel by Andy Weir of the same name. If anything, the latter interior is busier. [Image Credit: OIP.QiuX7Nv8LKWrsbuDrfBNGgHaD1 (474×245)]

In all these instances, there’s plenty of room to move around, exercise, spend leisure time, conduct work, and engage in other useful activities. It seems the filmmakers, as far back as at least the 50s, knew what NASA and SpaceX are addressing. On long missions, people need to pursue: Science and Research. Health and Fitness. Leisure and Relaxation.

Are you ready to sign up? Let me know what you think about spending six months in a steel box, traveling twenty-five thousand miles an hour, tens of millions of miles from Earth, with your soon-to-be closest friends.

Don’t forget the Scabble game.

Thanks for stopping by.

A few years ago, I attended a science fiction convention where one presentation discussed the number of launches it would take to achieve Elon Musk’s goal of moving one-million people to Mars over an assumed 10-year period. At 100 passengers per launch, that would be 100 launches per year (10,000 people)—two a week. SpaceX Mars colonization program – Wikipedia.

I’d travel to Starbase in Texas to watch that.

I should note here, the presenter estimated about 10 times that number of launches to send materials, components for the habitat, fuel for getting the Starship upper stage to and from Mars, landing on Mars, and so on. That required 1,000 launches per year or 20 per week. Putting is gently—he was a skeptic.

But I would look at this from a different perspective and consider how much weight Starship can launch into orbit. To keep it simple, I’ll use the information from Wikipedia and use the figure of 150 metric tons per launch. SpaceX Starship – Wikipedia (Note: the space shuttle could deliver 25 metric tons to orbit. Space Shuttle – Wikipedia)

Let’s suppose we want to send one-hundred people, including their “luggage” allotment, at 500 pounds per person. That’s about 226 kilograms per person, or 22.6 metric tons of people and their stuff, per launch. So what do you fill Starship with? What makes up the other 125 metric tons for that launch?

Good question. You’ll need supplies, of course, for the three-month trip. But you could throw in, say, 100 metric tons of supplies.

Why is that important? Well, one estimate we can use is they’ll need 1 million tons of supplies and materials to build a city for the 1 million people. That would be about 6,700 launches. But maybe some of that could go with the passenger launches, perhaps as much as 100,000 tons. Consider that a contingency perhaps.

Regardless, 10,000 launches might not be a bad estimate of what it would take.

Which brings me to the other two drivers of how we can get the materials needed to build a city on Mars and move 1 million people: how many ships are available and how much time does it take. Let’s start with estimating 40 years to complete the project. If we do indeed need 10,000 launches, that’s 250 launches a year, 5 per week. That still seems like a lot, but there’s been talk about a sub-orbital, rocket system for passenger service around the world. (see my blog Breakfast in New York – Lunch in Singapore – Dinner in London); 5 launches a week might just be doable.

Finally, how many ships would we need? If the refurbishment/turnaround time is one month, for example, some number of ships are in transit, and maybe some stay in orbit or on Mars, would 100 be unreasonable? Numbers are feeling more manageable.

To put it in human-size terms, we’d need 100 ships, launching 5 times per week for 40 years. That’s manageable in less than a single lifetime. If I had a trillion dollars, I might do that; perhaps somebody will.

Or we could do one and done. (Of course, I have to bring sci-fi into this.) In the classic 1951 film, When Worlds Collide, humanity is saved in a single ship, with a single launch, with everything they need for the new world, including livestock.

Doable? Likely not, but a fun movie.

Check it out: https://youtu.be/avtQ8elxL-o?t=96

(My apologies for any YouTube ads).

 Buckle up, we are go for launch.

Thanks for stopping by.