How To Die On Mars 278
An anonymous reader writes: Many space-related projects are currently focusing on Mars. SpaceX wants to build a colony there, NASA is looking into base design, and Mars One is supposedly picking astronauts for a mission. Because of this, we've been reading a lot about how we could live on Mars. An article at Popular Science reminds us of all the easy ways to die there. "Barring any complications with the spacecraft's hardware or any unintended run-ins with space debris, there's still a big killer lurking out in space that can't be easily avoided: radiation. ... [And] with so little atmosphere surrounding Mars, gently landing a large amount of weight on the planet will be tough. Heavy objects will pick up too much speed during the descent, making for one deep impact. ... Mars One's plan is to grow crops indoors under artificial lighting. According to the project's website, 80 square meters of space will be dedicated to plant growth within the habitat; the vegetation will be sustained using suspected water in Mars' soil, as well as carbon dioxide produced by the initial four-member crew. However, analysis conducted by MIT researchers last year (PDF) shows that those numbers just don't add up."
Hobbit (Score:5, Interesting)
Except underground, which is the obvious solution but people are too fixated on making housing above the ground.
Even on Earth, living underground would shield us from the extreme cold and extreme heat. That would be better for us and would require a lot less energy to warm us in the winter and cool us in the summer.
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Except, like most obvious solutions - moving underground poses as many (if not more) problems as it purports to solve. For example, adding many tons of earth moving machinery to a manifest already bulging at the seams. (Machinery which will add to the maintenance burden as well.) This solution also limits
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Why dig the cavern when there are already networks of lava tubes?
You can seal both ends of the tube, or put your habitat inside the lava tube. That delivers practically free radiation shielding.
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Fine. Once a week, you get to hold your breath, go through the airlock, and stand on the surface of the planet - naked - for five minutes. That should solve your vitamin D problem.
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The first colonists will live underground, to be sure, but the big problem with radiation is going to be on the trip up there. There is going to have to be some meeting-in-the-middle of shielding vs a generated magnetic field.
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Do you get the impression Mars One has planned on bringing enough excavating equipment to make this viable?
The technological challenges of underground cities on Mars are not going to be viable for the first people there.
If you plan on doing that, you need to pre-stage your equipment there, or dig by hand.
Yes, in theory, underground solves one possible problem. But it's a long way from solving eno
Re:Hobbit (Score:5, Interesting)
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Are there caves in the canyons? (not sure we can rely on the water/limestone cavemaking system we use on Earth, to work on Mars too)
Re:Hobbit (Score:5, Informative)
There are known caves on mars, see here [wikipedia.org] (has pretty pictures).
It's hard to get imagery of caves in the side of canyons from orbit, and our rovers haven't been down into the canyons much if at all, so we haven't seen them yet, but I would be suprised if there wasn't. Water/limestone is not the only way they can form - e.g there are known lava tubes on mars. Kim Stanley Robinson's Mars trilogy has a habitat in a lava tube. And we know that mars had a lot of water in its past - what do you think formed the canyons? :)
Also the caves where we build habitats don't have to be in canyons. From a logistical point of view it's probably better if they're not, i.e it's difficult to land a spacecraft in a canyon and annoying to drive from your non-canyon spaceport to your canyon habitat.
drones are planned in 2020s missions (Score:2)
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As soon as you stop calling yourself an expert on space development.
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It is kind of funny, but at the altitude where Venus is around 1 ATM, it is a tropical paradise. So colonization of Venus would look more like the floating cities of Bespin, but it is doable.
Re:Hobbit (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Hobbit (Score:5, Funny)
oh -- but we'll bring 3D printers, we'll just 3D print everything! 3D printing is the say of the future! They are like Star Trek replicators, except they are here, today! Look! I just 3D printed a shrine to my 3D printer!
You only need to print one Home Depot and take it from there.
(stole that funny from another slashdot comment).
Re:Hobbit (Score:5, Insightful)
A colony on Mars that strives for at degree of self-sufficiency will involve lots of nasty jobs, like mining, ore processing, large-scale smelting, chemical refining, basic terrain grading and construction, along with all of the other dangerous aspects of being on Mars, like that the planet not being suitable for life as we know it.
If you want to know who to to talk to when designing your infrastructure for supporting a colony, speak with Caterpillar, or Komatsu, or Hyundai, or Honda, or John Deere. If you want to know how to deal with mineral extraction contact Freeport McMoRan or 3M or any of a large number of other mining conglomerates, or look to any of the universities that specialize in mining engineering.
And that isn't even getting to manufacturing or to food production, both of which would be required for a colony to succeed.
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One thing that Mars certainly doesn't lack is iron. Get a smelter and foundry going and you are limited only by your energy supply.
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I wonder if Mars has enough other minerals to make high-grade steel as easily as on Earth....
I suppose once enough people have died, as the summary alludes, there will be at least some carbon around. Not sure if the decay processes of Earth would work as well there, so might just as well put the raw materials to work. Seeing that they want to have a farm instead of a soylent factory. (Yes, I'm being facetious.)
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It is every citizen's final duty to go into the tanks and become one with all the people.
- Chairman Sheng-ji Yang, "Ethics for Tomorrow"
Re:Hobbit (Score:5, Informative)
I love how these things are all "you simply have to do..." Like one goes out and collects the atmosphere with a butterfly net and splits it with a butcher's knife. Or like just goes and "gets a smelter and a foundry going".
Do these people have any clue how complex these sorts of industrial systems are? They have hundreds of thousands of components, all of which can break, and some of which are massive. The more you scale it down, the less efficient it becomes. And systems engineered on Earth don't just magically work on Mars too. You can't just dump heat into a river or the air, your gravity is significantly lower, and you've got electrostatic dust that clings to everything. And everyone output feedstock you want requires half a dozen or so input feedstocks, not counting all of the parts that can break - and they will break. And not all of these feedstocks can be gotten from the same location.
Let's just pick one little part of what you just wrote. "pass the CO over iron oxide dust" (we'll ignore everything leading up to getting and transporting that CO2). First off, if you literally do just that, you'll get nothing. The reaction needs to be done *hot* [teara.govt.nz]. And it can't be just "passing it over", it has to be thoroughly mixed. But then you get ready-to-use steel right? Wrong. Because you don't have "iron oxide dust". First off, you don't have any fine "dust" in mineable quanties, the blowing surface dust is spread over overthing, not accumulated in big pits ready for you to dig up.You at best have sand; at worst, solid rock. Most sands are not going to made of a majority iron oxide (if they have any sizeable quantities at all). Iron ore deposits are places where iron has been *concentrated* by geological processes, it doesn't make up the majority of basalts. And even cementations of iron-rich clay concentrates aren't 100% iron oxide. Whatever you mine (which means mining equipment, which means big, expensive, complex devices), you need to break it up, which means rock crushers, (which mean big, expensive, high wear devices), transport (haulers - more expensive devices), etc. At the mill it's going to go through a range of hoppers, conveyors, etc, all of which will wear and break. In addition to your ore and CO, you need a wide range of fluxing agents to separate out the stuff you don't want and to produce a usable product. The most critical of your fluxing agents is limestone, which on Earth mainly comes from deposits of marine microorganisms. Fat lot of luck finding that on Mars. So you need to mine less common calcium carbonate sources like travertine. More mining equipment. Hey, do you expect to find your travertine ten feet from your iron ore? Yeah, best of luck finding that, you've got to drive! Just hope you don't have to drive hundreds of kilometers, eh? Of course that's just one of a variety of fluxing agents you'll be wanting to add, there are many, for varying purposes. Anyway, once you've got your big molten mess (consuming ridiculous amounts of energy, orders of magnitude more than we've ever fielded offworld), you need to do something with it as you stream it out. Okay, then of course you have your slag skimmers. Hey, how long do you think that parts dripped in a stream of molten iron last? And you need to do something with your slag, so get your equipment to haul it away (after you've cooled it) ready as well. Speaking of cooling, normally we'd use water for that and just let it boil off for cooling, but on Mars it's a precious commodity, so go add more complexity for recapture and cooling! So now we've got a stream of mostly pure steel, but we're not even CLOSE to having usable parts.... (I'll stop here, as I don't want to spend all day on this).
I get it, you have a basic understanding of the chemical formulas for making a couple products. Well, here in the real world, a simple chemical formula is not enough. Real world processes are far more expensive and complex. They don't just pop together by waving a magic wan
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I think you don't give Mars dreamers enough credit. It's fun to think about, and do a bit of handwaving, but most everyone realizes colonizing Mars is an enormous challenge. Obviously, the first European colonies in the Americas were much easier. They already had breathable air and a tolerable climate. Life was already firmly established, all the colonists had to do was harness it. Even so, many colonies failed.
On Mars, we have to start life from scratch. One problem that as far as we know Mars does
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Why dig? It's been calculated that lava tubes up to five miles wide would be stable on Mars. We just need to locate some - there should be plenty. And even a tubes a few tens of meters across would provide ample room for initial colonies.
Or, we could build in the bottom of valleys - which chosen strategically would block well upwards of 80% of the radiation which would impact a space craft.
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>People build stuff, not find magic caves.
You appear to be ignorant of most of the last several hundred thousand years of human history...
Large earth moving equipment is HEAVY, and requires a LOT of energy to operate. you could bring a LOT of useful and versatile equipment to Mars for the cost of even a small a tunnel-boring machine. And you'd probably also need to bring a nuclear reactor to provide enough energy to operate it (or be willing to supply ~3.6kg of oxygen for every 1kg of gasoline or other
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There is nothing to "gloss over" since it is obviously hard. Perhaps it boggles your mind but people
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And submarines are about as far from self-sufficient as possible, relying entirely on their shore support infrastructure to supply everything except oxygen and water. Every last part onboard the ship, every last meal they eat, comes from shore. You know, just like it will be with a Martian colony. Oh sure, fantasists in the early days of submarines
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"Never" is too harsh of a word. But I share in your frustration about their glossing over the reality of engineering these "simple" processes that they envision. Just the amount of engineering work to *design* with enough precision to actually build a fully self-sustaining industrial base designed to work on Mars with the individual components being small enough to plausibly launch would cost in hundreds of billions to trillions of dollars Everything in industry has unimaginably massively long dependency ch
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Yes, sure, please describe how you plan to dig on a planet with sweet fuck all on it? I think you space prophets don't have the imagination it takes to envision the complete and utter lack of everything when you're dreaming about your Mars condos...
Wish I had mod points to mod this parent up. When people think about colonizing Mars, they picture some romantic red desert with cool domed habitats. Really, what you should picture is the absolute harshest environment you can imagine, and then multiple by 10. You are talking about a planet where the atmosphere is close to vacuum, bathed in radiation, with poisonous soil, with no support and no chance of rescue. If anything breaks, you better be able to fix it on the spot. It would be FAR easier to tak
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A cold near-vacuum is far different than a cold environment with high air pressure though. Keeping warm is not nearly as big of a challenge in a cold near-vacuum as heat transfer is minimized. Wind chill is a huge factor in Antarctica and almost non-existent on Mars.
A much better "proving grounds" location would be a very arid, high altitude desert like the Atacama Desert in South America.
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Just launch all our garbage to Mars along with a bunch of trash compacting robots. Eventually one will build a city while behaving like a carrion cannibal.
What about the local magnetospheres (Score:2, Interesting)
They're missing the point... (Score:4, Insightful)
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Re:They're missing the point... (Score:5, Insightful)
Option one: You live a long but uneventful life in an unremarkable job. You are loved by friends and family,but after your death your memory soon begins to fade. You accomplish little of any lasting effect upon the world.
Option two: You life a life of adventure and challenge, and die young in one of the many tragic accidents that your inhospitable environment causes on a regular basis. You pioneer a new way of life, and there's a good chance of your name going down in history books. You contribute to something that may change the course of history.
Either way, you end up dead - but for a lot of people, option two looks more appealing.
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You life a life of adventure and challenge, and die young in one of the many tragic accidents that your inhospitable environment causes on a regular basis.
Fair enough, many climb Mount Everest for no better reason.
You pioneer a new way of life,
Well mostly you'll be living in a bunker living off a long supply chain from Earth. It'll be a lot like living on a submarine that you mostly endure rather than pioneer. Many will envy you going, not so many the actual living conditions.
and there's a good chance of your name going down in history books.
Name the third guy to set foot on the moon. I'm not saying there's no fame, but there's many easier ways to celebrity status. Except if you're the next Neil Armstrong.
You contribute to something that may change the course of history.
True. But I imagine it'll be a rather unglamorous
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It'll be a lot like living on a submarine that you mostly endure rather than pioneer
Extra points for this remark. I suppose many of us (myself included) at first had a somewhat romantic picture when thinking about the first Mars settlement, even harebrained ones like Mars One. A garden dome with some cylindrical habitats around it, with a bespacesuited pioneer standing outside next to the rover he takes out on his daily drives around the planet. The submarine analogy is much more realistic... It'll be cramped, with only very limited time outdoors, with zero privacy, zero opportunity to
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You life a life of adventure and challenge, and die young in one of the many tragic accidents that your inhospitable environment causes on a regular basis.
Fair enough, many climb Mount Everest for no better reason.
The difference is that the tax payer doesn't foot the bill for Everest summit attempts.
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How do you think we managed to make Australia habitable?
Penal colony... "You've been sentenced to death. How'd you like to an opportunity to live a little longer?"
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Space travel is hard.
The point is, we have to try. The sooner we are independent of Earth, the better.
So what if it takes a few trillion dollars of effort and resources? There will always be people who could be better off. That's the human condition.
We are either meant for the stars or we are not. I choose to believe the former. Would I go myself? No. I'm too old. Would I invest my money and encourage my children to go? Absolutely.
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Until they try it. (Though a small number will actually take to it.)
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There isn't really a need to worry about that. Mars One won't even make it off the ground, much less Mars.
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If I wanted to go to to Mars I would strongly prefer to die AFTER I was able to build a working colony there.
Identifying and countering the dangers helps to get some productive years out of your astronauts. The fact that many would go on a one way trip there does not mean that most of those would like to die soon there. I hazard a guess that most would like to live a lifetime there.
Re:They're missing the point... (Score:5, Informative)
I don't understand why people are finding any problems with that.
The problem is that sending people to Mars is very expensive and the billions of dollars wasted on sending people to die on an inhospitable planet could be better used for other things.
There is no parallel between a Mars outpost and explorers in the Age of Sail. On Mars people will be living in holes in the ground only able to go outside in cumbersome suits and will have to be supported by shipments from earth for a very long time possibly forever. All for no gain for Earth. Age of Sail colonies quickly became self sufficient and able to live off the land or they failed.
Mars 1 is a scam to make money for the promoters and nothing more.
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> The problem is that sending people to Mars is very expensive and the billions of dollars wasted on sending people to die on an inhospitable planet could be better used for other things.
Which is what people in my youth said about the Moon landing and, frankly, has been a constant refrain against all space flight. It's difficult to know which parts of interplanetary flight and technology will pay off the most, and I'd prefer myself to pursue some of those likely byproducts first. But just a few potential
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Re:They're missing the point... (Score:5, Insightful)
But that's pretty much always the case with colonists. Unless you're incredibly wealthy, you buy a one way ticket to a new land, with the near-guarantee that you will die there, and a very real risk that your death will be relatively soon thanks to unknown dangers and a lack of infrastructure. The only exception being if you become wealthy enough to buy return passage - and if the new land is that kind to you, you're probably not going to be in any hurry to leave.
And it's still just the "some" who decide to emigrate. Most of the "all" will always stay behind, where life is generally easy, and they will be unaffected by the deaths of the colonists.
Re:They're missing the point... (Score:5, Interesting)
The difference being that Age of Sail colonists could live in pretty much the same condition as the one they left. On Mars the "colonists" will be living underground and will never again feel fresh air in their lungs or sun on their skin. They will be dependent on the next supply mission or they will die. All it will take is for one person to go insane, destroy critical equipment and everyone is dead. Living under Mars conditions for years is very likely to cause this to happen. Then there is the point that Earth will have to spend billions to keep a few people alive. Sorry but a Mars "colony" is just not viable.
and they will be unaffected by the deaths of the colonists.
Except for the things that could have been done with the money wasted on sending people to Mars to die. We are talking billions of dollars that have much better uses here on Earth.
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We are talking billions of dollars that have much better uses here on Earth.
Yeah, like getting misused by corrupt government agencies [slashdot.org] instead of spending it on the important stuff
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The difference being that Age of Sail colonists could live in pretty much the same condition as the one they left. On Mars the "colonists" will be living underground and will never again feel fresh air in their lungs or sun on their skin. They will be dependent on the next supply mission or they will die.
My god, I can't believe you actually posted this on slashdot. I'd guess that 99% of those reading this will be ideally suited for life on Mars after having spent the last few years in mom's basement.
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Valar morghulis.
Radiation not a problem, an opportunity (Score:3)
I forget where but recently I read a really good point - the radiation shielding someone on Mars might want to wear a lot (especially outside) is actually quite useful, because it adds weight that puts stress on your bones to the same degree Earth gravity would, thus reducing the problem of bone loss through everyday movement instead of just exercise periods.
As mentioned though, it seems like any mars settlement could make good use of the canyons there to help with shielding.
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The sad fact is, the first colonies will probably be build right out in the open on flat land with nothing around for dozens of kilometers, because it's safer to land there. Which is why we haven't landed any Mars probes in deep canyons or the like, despite all of the interesting geological formations that would be exposed on the walls.
Another Significant Hazard: Toxic Mars (Score:5, Informative)
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(chock full)
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Mars sent us our ancestors 3B years ago (Score:2)
Obvious first step (Score:5, Insightful)
How to die on Mars:
1) Go to Mars
2) Wait
No one has yet figured out step 1.
PS: You should go to Mars! It's a real paradise -- there's no crime, no disease, no oppression, no pain, and no death. And no taxes, either.
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When the American fails to file on time, the IRS will do all the R&D for a round trip mission to send the auditors and collect the tax. A sacrifice for the benefit of the colony :).
Mars ain't the kind of place to raise your kids (Score:3)
And there's no one there to raise them if you did
And all this science I don't understand
It's just my job 5 days a week
Rocket man! Rocket man!
Mars is a lot lighter right? (Score:2)
What would it feel like to live there? Would you have to be careful walking? How long would it take to adapt.
g = 3.75 m/s^2 vs 9.8 m/s^2
Dirt Berm (Score:3)
Voluntarily (Score:3, Insightful)
The plan (Score:3)
Mars One's plan is to continue to siphon money until everyone else figures out it's a scam.
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Exactly. Why are we still wasting time discussing this scheme?
Robert Heinlen (Score:2)
Stupidity is a death sentence.
Heavy vs. light? (Score:5, Funny)
Heavy objects will pick up too much speed during the descent, making for one deep impact. ...
I seem to recall hearing some recent developments in science, some wacko claim by some Italian guy that the acceleration due to gravity was actually independent of the mass of the object. That would indicate that both heavy and light objects would accelerate the same way under the influence of gravity on Mars. What a silly notion, I'm sure the Pope will cure him of his heresy.
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In a vacuum, yes, but Mars's atmosphere is too thick to ignore, but too thin to be really useful for landing large objects with chutes and aerobreaking. The smaller rovers got away with chutes and impacting with big bouncy airbags, but Curiosity would've hit too hard to survive, which is why it went with the propulsive "sky crane" scheme.
Anything larger, and there's little choice but using rockets to touch down in one piece. Lighting an engine in an atmosphere while the craft is supersonic introduces all
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We have already done aerobraking on Mars, both for orbiters and landers.
TFA has no clue about orbital mechanics (Score:5, Informative)
Heavy objects will pick up too much speed during the descent, making for one deep impact.
1. Speed gained during decent does not depend on weight of the craft.
:)
When considering aero-braking/parachuting/gliding the only thing that matters is lift/drag generating surface area vs mass
2. Speed gained during decent (from mars gravity) is nominal compared to orbital transfer speed/orbital speed that needs to be zeroed.
Mars orbital speed at 200km is around 2.4km/s, total amount of speed gained from direct decent from 200km to 0km on Mars is around 1.2km/s (with no atmosphere), in real life we would see orbital speed (2.4km's) decreasing on decent due to atmospheric drag (until it reaches terminal velocity, which depends on point 1. but should be less than 1km/s for any viable design).
Prior to achieving stable orbit around mars we have to (aero-)brake from at least 15km/s (orbital transfer). So theoretical 1.2km/s from Mars gravity (which actually doesn't happen) is a really small amount of additional velocity compared to the amount we have to brake anyway.
Playing a few hours of KSP should be mandatory prior to posting articles about space flight on the internet
How to ALMOST die on Mars (multiple times) (Score:2)
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Mars One == B Ark (Score:2)
buffering...buffering... (Score:2)
"Analysis" (Score:2)
"However, analysis conducted by MIT researchers last year"
I'm a bit foggy on the specifics, but wasn't one of the major "faults" noted in that study the loss of nitrogen via out gassing to prevent CO2 buildup. And some quick internet searches found various commercially available systems that don't have consumables to extract nitrogen/CO2 from an atmosphere (either removing CO2 directly from the habitat or removing the nitrogen from the waste CO2 stream before expulsion). Don't get me wrong there are plent
Cool Zombie Science Recipies (Score:3)
EVOLUTIONARY DEAD END COOKIES
(serves 7 billion)
INGREDIENTS
two million years of domesticated fire
six millennia of scientific curiosity
two centuries of significant progress in science and engineering
50 years of space exploration
35 years of awareness of KT impact and necessity of planetary defense [slashdot.org]
one cup irrational fear of radiation and willful disregard for shielding techniques (to taste)
one sprinkle fear of death from any cause not typically experienced by modern suburbans
lump of plain common sense (if you can not find it, substitute two tbsp blind faith and a pound of dogged determination)
tiny dash of optimism
PREPARATION
Carefully combine all ingredients in a large bowl of stars, ensuring that you completely blend the essential characteristics that have allowed these naked apes to overcome natural extremes of climate, predators, disease and boredom. Beat until technological excellence rises to the top. Form into several self-sustainable colonies and multinational corporate enterprises. Place in space oven preheated to a degree of caution and optimism. Bake until spinoffs from the enterprise rise to the occasion with the potential to enhance and expand human civilization with its yummy goodness, colonies in space are able to mobilize quickly in Earth's defense, and Galaxia might be achieved.
SERVING
Throw out all that shit. Engage the collective human mind in sitcoms and 'reality' shows.
Promote artificial issues that represent lack of vision or restraint (terrorism, energy poverty) as if they were natural threats
Let the fucking insurance companies guide all innovation and risk taking.
Promote zombies and head-shot horror in mainstream media as a gateway to cannibalism and violent population reduction.
Popularize cheeky '1001 ways to Die' angles.
Feed the slack.
Characterize folks who try to push through these barriers as 'space nutters' [slashdot.org].
For cookies, spray flavored coating over a nutritionally inert Styrofoam shapes and market them as "heart healthy".
Re:Mars One Plan (Score:5, Funny)
as well as carbon dioxide produced by the initial four-member crew
Oh no! We're going to cause global warming on Mars now!
1st Total Recall movie terraformed Mars with CO2 (Score:2)
Re:Mars One Plan (Score:4, Insightful)
You mean since the USA landed rovers on Mars, orbited Jupiter, Saturn, Mercury, Venus, sent out two interstellar probes, has a probe about to fly by Pluto... that USA?
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Yah, it's the one that sent real people to another world 40 years ago and has only managed to send R/C devices since.
Those RC devices (Score:2)
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If nobody is going there we aren't actually USING that information are we?
We're satisfying our curiosity. I, for one, am still waiting for discovery of (ancient) life forms on Mars, or some evidence that rules that out. On top of that, unmanned rovers also result in spin-off technology.
When do we get someone up there with a shovel to look beneath the sun-sterilized surface?
Rovers can do that better.
When do we get actual permanent habitats anywhere outside of Earth?
Because it's both insanely expensive as well as utterly pointless.
Re: Mars One Plan (Score:3)
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More people need to read up on this experiment:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B... [wikipedia.org]
They ran into serious problems and that was on a system located on Earth and well stocked. Martian colonies are a pipe dream. We know very little about the oceans, let's explore those first.
Re:Terraforming potential? (Score:4, Informative)
Nobody is seriously discussing terraforming Mars any time soon. The plan is to create artificial habitats.
But if we did - the atmopshere would be stripped away over the course of millions of years - fast by geologic terms, but not human. You just need to periodically replenish it, either with clusters of small asteroid impacts, or gasses produced from rock (for reference, oxygen is by far the most common element in the Earth's crust - with almost 10x as much as the second place element, silicon.)
In that scenario radiation would largely be a non-issue as, just on Earth, it would be stopped by the many miles of atmosphere. On Earth the magnetic field only deflects low- to medium-energy charged-particle radiation - mostly the solar wind. The rest gets (mostly) blocked by the atmosphere - which provides shielding equivalent to dozens of meters of rock.
And in the transitional phase, well, plenty of organisms can survive completely unprotected in space for extended periods. Assuming we engineer custom "Martian" life, I would imagine that radiation resistance and/or efficient DNA repair would be transplanted from such organisms.
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Or we could skin over the planetary atmosphere with some kind of membrane. Might be easier than impacting the odd rock. Long as we're dreaming. :)
Re:Terraforming potential? (Score:4, Interesting)
My favorite approach is to build floating solar towers on Venus or the gas giants - big chunks of greenhouse material shaped like an inverted funnel reaching out into space. Unable to radiate its IR radiation back to space, the air under the funnel would become hotter than the surrounding atmosphere and rise (imparting lift to the funnel without even requiring a lifting gas). Due to the size, drag against the funnel surface would be irrelevantly small. As the funnel narrows, the gas velocity would increase - with a large enough funnel, to well over escape velocity. The funnel could be moved and aimed to some degree by directing part of the flow out through adjustable side jets. If the funnel was shaped so as to cause the gases to spiral and then flare out at the end, you could centrifugally sort the gases out by atomic mass, and thus for example rob light gases (such as water and nitrogen) of escape velocity while allowing heavy gases like CO2 the energy to escape.
Venus could send CO2 on a Mars intercept trajectory to raise its temperature and pressure. Jupiter could send hydrogen on Venus and Mars intercept trajectories, for Bosch water generation. Large moons and dwarf planets could be similarly seeded.
Of course, the obvious question: will this, or any other form of terraforming begin any time in the next many-hundred years?
Nope.
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Cool idea, but I suspect it's not practical. Venus has an orbital specific energy of -613 MJ/kg, while Mars has only -291MJ/kg. That's a 322MJ/kg difference. Meanwhile Venus escape velocity is only 10.4km/s, or 54MJ/kg. So basically you'd need to impart almost 6x as much energy (36x as much speed) to get to Mars as to just escape Venus. And I suspect even escaping Venus would be a challenge.
Also, keep in mind that since the lift from the heated gas would be what's propelling it to escape velocity, it wo
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In that scenario radiation would largely be a non-issue as, just on Earth, it would be stopped by the many miles of atmosphere.
You need to look at the science a bit. The Earth is protected from radiation by a magnetic field. Mars does not have one.
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Yes. If you've got the technology to rebuild an entire planet, topping off the atmosphere occasionally shouldn't be an issue.
It's all about context.
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I've posted this elsewhere. After reading this you should be a skeptic:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B... [wikipedia.org]