Emergency colony?

If we were faced with an extinction level event on earth and knew it was coming, say in 5-10 years. are we capable of launching and setting up a colony on mars or the moon to preserve the species??

with today's technology and unlimited funding, could the gov't today set up a self substaining colony?

Well first you make one huge assumption...that people would all work together to save a few of us. If the entire world knew of this doomsday it would likely make us all kill eachother with war.

However, the question seems to be more about CAN we rather than WOULD we.

The answer is no based on current knowledge. As far as we know Mars has very little water and the moon has virtually none. Without water we couldn't grow food, make fuel, or have anything to drink.

So unless we find more water on Mars or another off-world location we couldn't make any self-sustaining bases.

We could however head to Mar's polar region and hope that most of the polar caps there are water instead of methane.

It would take a HUGE amount of supplies to build a self sustained base, and even then it would probably eventually fail. To date no biosphere experiment has been stable. However you could in theory survive long enough to wait for things to settle down on earth then move back.

When I was in middle school I was fascinated by fallout/bomb shelters, and learned as much about them as I could.

I think that if there was such a crisis at hand, I think that'd be the best option.

Originally posted by TheHeggy
When I was in middle school I was fascinated by fallout/bomb shelters, and learned as much about them as I could.

I think that if there was such a crisis at hand, I think that'd be the best option.

I think staying on Earth would probably be safer than trying to make an off-world base. Trying to hide from a disaster would be the best idea, rather than trying to move supplies million of miles to a planet where you can handle the temperature, lack of oxygen, or radiation levels.

actaully, from what ive heard about bomb shelters, they arent rated (atleast the ones in the usa) to handle the megatons of todays nuclear blasts. so i dunno how effective theyd be. i wouldnt leave the planet either, the best bet is to hide in a hardened facility under a mountain...

Only "practical" mean would be to hide underground in bunkers in mountaneous areas.

Here's some nice reading:
www.space.com...
www.space.com...
Sounds like fun, doesn't it?

reading this thread made me remember the old 'day of the dead' movie script.
if extinction was on the horizon...expect alot of people to die. the only ones surviving will be the fat cats in the military and in political office.

I don't think money or resources would be a problem, since everyone was about to die. I think Quest made the point perfectly: would we all work together to save a few of us.