Russia Adv – 1ac

a2 Radiation

No bone density problems – exercise, dietary, and on earth experimentation solve, also Regolith solves radiation

Gage 10 - XPM Technologies

Douglas; October; “Mars Base First: A Program-level Optimization for Human Mars Exploration” http://journalofcosmology.com/Mars103.html

Since living beneath five meters of regolith will mitigate the radiation hazard on the surface, the principal physiological challenge posed by the base-first mission (beyond those posed by a 30-month conjunction mission) is the loss of bone density and strength associated with the outward and return 6+ month zero gravity transits and eight years of 0.38 g Mars gravity. A focused exercise regimen, possibly combined with dietary modification, should at least partially mitigate these effects (Keyak et al. 2009), and at some point it might be possible to install a one-g centrifuge in the base. Long-term exposure to a low-pressure high-oxygen atmosphere in the base habitat, which could be adopted in order to reduce EVA prebreathe time (Gage, 2006; NASA, 2001, p. 20), would constitute a second physiological risk factor – but this is a risk which can be evaluated by experimentation on Earth.
No mars radiation

Robert Zubrin (President of the Mars Society) 2010 “Human Mars Exploration: The Time Is Now” http://journalofcosmology.com/Mars111.html

4.1. Radiation: It is alleged by some that the radiation doses involved in a Mars mission present insuperable risks, or are not well understood. This is untrue. Solar flare radiation, consisting of protons with energies of about 1 MeV, can be shielded by 12 cm of water or provisions, and there will be enough of such materials on board the ship to build an adequate pantry storm shelter for use in such an event. The residual cosmic ray dose, about 50 Rem for the 2.5 year mission, represents a statistical cancer risk of about 1%, roughly the same as that which would be induced by an average smoking habit over the same period.

a2 Solar Storms

No Impact

Robert Zubrin (President of the Mars Society) 2010 “Human Mars Exploration: The Time Is Now” http://journalofcosmology.com/Mars111.html

4.5. Dust Storms: Mars has intermittent local, and occasionally global dust storms with wind speeds up to 100 km/hour. Attempting to land through such an event would be a bad idea, and two Soviet probes committed to such a maelstrom by their uncontrollable flight systems were destroyed during landing in 1971. However, once on the ground, Martian dust storms present little hazard. Mars’ atmosphere has only about 1% the density of Earth at sea-level. Thus a wind with a speed of 100 km/hr on Mars only exerts the same dynamic pressure as a 10 km/hr breeze on Earth. The Viking landers endured many such events without damage. Humans are more than a match for Mars’ dragons.

a2 Timeframe

We need to act now – the space program will go extinct soon, and we’re on the Titanic with no lifeboats.

Gott 11- Department of Astrophysics, Princeton University

Richard; January; “A One-Way Trip to Mars” http://journalofcosmology.com/Mars151.html

I've been stressing the fact that we should be in a hurry to colonize space, to improve our survival prospects, since my Nature paper in 1993 (Gott 1993). The real space race is whether we get off the planet before the money for the space program runs out. The human spaceflight program is only 50 years old, and may go extinct on a similar timescale. Expensive programs are often abandoned after a while. In the 1400s, China explored as far as Africa before abruptly abandoning its voyages. Right now we have all our eggs in one basket: Earth. The bones of extinct species in our natural history museums give mute testimony that disasters on Earth routinely occur that cause species to go extinct. It is like sailing on the Titanic with no lifeboats. We need some lifeboats. A colony on Mars might as much as double our long-term survival prospects by giving us two chances instead of one.

Colonies are a great bargain: you just send a few astronauts and they have descendants on Mars, sustained by using indigenous materials. It's the colonists who do all the work. If one is worried that funds will be cut off, it is important to establish a self-supporting colony as soon as possible. Some have argued that older astronauts should be sent on a one-way trip to Mars since they ostensibly have less to lose. But I would want to recruit young astronauts who can have children and grandchildren on Mars: people who would rather be the founders of a Martian civilization than return to a ticker-tape parade on Earth. Founding a colony on Mars would change the course of world history. You couldn't even call it "world" history anymore. If colonizing Mars to increase the survival prospects of the human species is our goal, then, since money is short, we should concentrate on that goal.

Impact – Asteroids

Space colonization solves asteroids strikes that lead to extinction.

Siegfried 02 - Integrated Defense Systems at Boeing.

William H.; “Space Colonization—Benefits for the World”; http://www.aiaa.org.proxy.lib.umich.edu/participate/uploads/acf628b.pdf

Over the last decade a large mass of evidence has been accumulated indicating that near-Earth-object (NEO) impact events constitute a real hazard to Earth. Congress held hearings on the phenomenon in 1998, and NASA created a small NEO program. Since 1988, a total (as of 7 August 2002) of some many thousand near-Earth objects (of which about 1,000 are larger that 1 km in diameter) have been catalogued that are potentially hazardous to Earth. New discoveries are accelerating. In just the last few months, a 2-mile-wide crater was discovered in Iraq dating from around 2000 to 3000 B.C. This impact was potentially responsible for the decline of several early civilizations. A similar crater was recently discovered in the North Sea. Major events have occurred twice in the last hundred years in remote areas where an object exploded near the Earth’s surface but did not impact (such as in Russia). If either of these events had occurred over a populated area the death toll would have been enormous. Our armed forces are concerned that an asteroid strike could be interpreted as a nuclear attack, thus triggering retaliation. What higher goals could Space Colonization have than in helping to prevent the destruction of human life and to ensure the future of civilization? The odds of an object 1 km in diameter impacting Earth in this century range between 1 in 1,500 and 1 in 5,000 depending on the assumptions made. A 1-km-diameter meteoroid impact would create a crater 5 miles wide. The death toll would depend on the impact point. A hit at Ground Zero in New York would kill millions of people and Manhattan Island (and much of the surrounding area) would disappear. The resulting disruption to the Earth’s environment would be immeasurable by today’s standards. A concerted Space Colonization impetus could provide platforms for early warning and could, potentially, aid in deflection of threatening objects. NEO detection and deflection is a goal that furthers international cooperation in space and Space Colonization. Many nations can contribute and the multiple dimensions of the challenge would allow participation in many ways—from telescopes for conducting surveys, to studies of lunar and other planet impacts, to journeys to the comets. The Moon is a natural laboratory for the study of impact events. A lunar colony would facilitate such study and could provide a base for defensive action. Lunar and Mars cyclers could be a part of Space Colonization that would provide survey sites and become bases for mining the NEOs as a resource base for space construction. The infrastructure of Space Colonization would serve a similar purpose to the solar system as did that of the United States Interstate Highway system or the flood control and land reclamation in the American West did for the United States development. In short, it would allow civilization to expand into the high frontier.