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[+] 27 points 2 years ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 child)
  • [+] 25 points 2 years ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (4 children)
  • [–] 26 points 2 years ago (4 children)

    I mean the technical hurdles aren't insurmountable. But we lack the political will power to put resources needed into it.

    It would take 60s moon landing level of commitment for 10-15 years to do any sooner.

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  • [–] 10 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    It's technically feasible in the bare minimum “Got there” sense. Bringing someone and getting them back. But we learned a lot by the moon exploration, and that is that we aren't ready for colonization. Living there, for a long time, let alone indefinitely, that is where the million details are still unresolved. I think that's the problem that is worth tackling. We already know we can live in space for a long time as long as there are continuous shipments of resources from Earth. We could just flood the logistics problem with money and get to mars next year if we wanted to. Other than the psychologically horrifyingly long distances involved, of course.

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  • [–] 4 points 2 years ago

    I'll say that Andy Weir got most of it right on how to do manned missions to Mars.

    You build a huge space station, and then use that as the ship that goes to and from Mars.

    Then the actual mission on the surface lasting a month or three before the astronauts pack up and head home.

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  • [–] 7 points 2 years ago (2 children)

    Well getting humans onto Mars he could do.

    But getting them back.........

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  • [–] 6 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    They might not even make it there. The radiation doses that they would take on the journey are massive and likely to do heavy damage like cataracts and organ failure, especially if solar storms were to hit while they were outside the magnetosphere of either planet.

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  • [–] 2 points 2 years ago (2 children)

    Where did I ever say he would get them there alive?

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  • [+] 3 points 2 years ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 child)
  • [–] 7 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    Hear me out: They're planning to lose.

    Promise ridiculous prosperity will happen when they win.

    Lose.

    No matter how successful the winner might eventually be, they can always point to the ridiculous prosperity that never happened, letting them rob their base of even enjoying the basic joy of any progress, keeping them mad, hateful, and controlled.

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  • [–] 3 points 2 years ago

    That actually happened in Hungary with Fidesz, in 2006. They even organized the riots that happened in the autumn.

    Of course the MSZP-SZDSZ government had a lot of issues, like planning to privatize the health care, but was sabotaged by Fidesz, a lot. Fidesz even helped the far-right as long as they didn't deny the Holocaust too much (which is still technically a felony in Hungary, except no longer prosecuted to my knowledge), and pushed the "free speech for all, except for those damn gays and Romani" alignment, while also helping to suppress any news about the anti-communism paranoia of SZDSZ. There was a now infamous political ad of theirs that was pushed during the call for the health-care privatization debates which framed state-owned health care as the last remaining element of communism, except almost no one saw them as most outlets tried to frame the moderate-libertarian party as "communist", especially the then up and coming kuruc info, a far-right "news" website known for doxxing and holocaust denial. Funnily enough, Fidesz is quietly supporting health-care privatization.

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