Mars Colonization Discussion Thread

[DAL59]

2 hours ago, Diche Bach said:

Has this video been linked up in heayah already?

 

Those reasons are easily disproven.  

1. Biosphere has no bearing on colonization of Mars.  Mars has resources, so a colony does not need 100% containment.  

2. The radiation levels on Mars are less than on the moon, and much less than interplanetary space.  Radiation can be blocked via water or fuel that will be on the craft anyway.

3. No probe so far has used supersonic retropropulsion, which would be used for a human landing.  Non SSRP landing failures aren't relevant.  

4. Suitlocks.  Also, they have proven that perchlorates do not get into the food grown in Martian soil.  

5. This is the worst one. We know for certain from ISS experience that 6 months in zero g is survivable.  1/3 gee after zero gee will make for an easier recovery compared to Earth.  The idea that astronauts will be unable to walk on Mars to to 6 months in zero gee isn't supported by anything.  

[PakledHostage]

33 minutes ago, DAL59 said:

Also, they have proven that perchlorates do not get into the food grown in Martian soil.  

Source? @PB666 gave a pretty good explanation as to why at least one such study was entirely misleading (see below). I'd be interested to know if your source is more reputable?

 

On 28/11/2017 at 10:12 AM, PB666 said:

There's no doubt in my mind to begin with, if you mix enough compost with martian soil those perchlorates will not last very long. The critical ingredient is not the earthworms, its the composing material they added.

Compost does two things, for alkaline soils (e.i. martian metal oxides in the soil immediately become bases upon hydration) and

Example

Na₂O + H2O ----> 2NaOH. 

NaOH + RCOOH becomes Na+RCOO- + H2O

NaClO4 + Acid <--------> HClO4
HClO₄ + 7H+ + electron donor (compost H:) ---------> 1/2Cl₂ + 4H₂0

For example peat is an excellent source of protons.

IOW, the earthworm part of the story is hype, they are just a canary in a coal mine. The critical ingredient is decaying organic material.

Edit:

I can put this another way, which might make the compulsive terraformers here unhappy, the Earth, at one time and still is, was very good at terraforming itself.
It is the fact that once life begins and takes off, it can force the climate and soil where it wants to be. The ideal of earth as a living thing just as a eucaryotic cell has multiple lives within it, and the body has many cells, the Earth's surface is a living thing compose of biomes with various biotypes that cooperate (through both their lives and deaths) to create a living surface.

If we remove this, we get something like Mars (too cold and small) or Venus (too hot and dense atmosphere). The old earth soil was this thin, methane was up there and spread loosely around. Now the organic material is a very dense and living layer decaying first by bacterial action, then by fungi, then by the activity of soil detritovores, then by the activity of plant roots, then by the decay of roots and plant leaves and start next cycle. In such a dense layer of organic material perchlorates or any kind of highly alkaline base cannot survive, since water is a prerequisite for soil, many soil oxides will decompose to base and the bases are unstable and become salts (like carbonates). Most of the biomass of the earth is now within the very top of earths crust.

 

[DAL59]

18 minutes ago, PakledHostage said:

There's no doubt in my mind to begin with, if you mix enough compost with martian soil those perchlorates will not last very long. The critical ingredient is not the earthworms, its the composing material they added.

Compost does two things, for alkaline soils (e.i. martian metal oxides in the soil immediately become bases upon hydration) and

Example

Na₂O + H2O ----> 2NaOH. 

NaOH + RCOOH becomes Na+RCOO- + H2O

NaClO4 + Acid <--------> HClO4
HClO₄ + 7H+ + electron donor (compost H:) ---------> 1/2Cl₂ + 4H₂0

For example peat is an excellent source of protons.

Doesn't that help my point?

[PakledHostage]

11 minutes ago, DAL59 said:

Doesn't that help my point?

First of all: you are falsely attributing @PB666's post to me. It is a good post and I don't deserve any credit for it.

And second if all: No.

@PB666 explains the chemistry. The compost is reacting with the perchlorates to neutralize them. If you don't have enough compost, you can't neutralize the perchlorates. But where are you going to get all that compost from? At least in the experiment cited above, the compost is the critical ingredient and without it the earthworms would have been screwed.

Edited December 15, 2017 by PakledHostage

[Green Baron]

7 hours ago, DAL59 said:

Those reasons are easily disproven.  

1. Biosphere has no bearing on colonization of Mars.  Mars has resources, so a colony does not need 100% containment.  

2. The radiation levels on Mars are less than on the moon, and much less than interplanetary space.  Radiation can be blocked via water or fuel that will be on the craft anyway.

3. No probe so far has used supersonic retropropulsion, which would be used for a human landing.  Non SSRP landing failures aren't relevant.  

4. Suitlocks.  Also, they have proven that perchlorates do not get into the food grown in Martian soil.  

5. This is the worst one. We know for certain from ISS experience that 6 months in zero g is survivable.  1/3 gee after zero gee will make for an easier recovery compared to Earth.  The idea that astronauts will be unable to walk on Mars to to 6 months in zero gee isn't supported by anything.  

I haven't seen the video but read most the reliable publications on Mars. There isn't much real hard data, one can get through with it in a day or two, then it starts becoming repetitive. So i won't link anything again here.

What disturbs me is "easily disproven", for that you need a conclusive proof, which does not exist. So it remains a claim, doesn't it ?

Mars does not have the resources to maintain a colony, you'd need a cocktail of today barely known complexity to independently support something that has never been made before. We know for sure that is impossible to run a settlement in Antarctica without support from outside. The same would be valid for deserts like the Rubh-al-Khali for example, even on the ocean(*). It is surely not possible on Mars, no matter how many billionaires dream otherwise.

Mars radiation level it >13.000 higher than earths (8.000mrad to 0.62mrad per year). That will kill some of your colonists if no care is taken and probably even if. They arrive in very bad shape after 6 months in space with a damaged immune system and all. Nobody knows right now if they survive.

I'd say that the picture of a colony is much bigger than a few single points taken out from colourful magazines and pictures :-)

 

(*) i know of crews who have caught fish crossing the Atlantic. And of others who haven't caught a single one, despite of drawing a fishing line behind all the way.

Edited December 15, 2017 by Green Baron

[DAL59]

1 hour ago, Green Baron said:

The same would be valid for deserts like the Rubh-al-Khali for example

We haven't really tried though.  We need to do that(build a mock colony in the desert).  A desert would be a better place to test than Antarctica, because Antarctica has that ice sheet blocking access to the metals.  

1 hour ago, Green Baron said:

Mars radiation level it >13.000 higher than earths (8.000mrad to 0.62mrad per year). That will kill some of your colonists if no care is taken and probably even if.

There are lava tubes on Mars.  Also, you could just pile dirt on the surface habs.  

1 hour ago, Green Baron said:

Mars does not have the resources to maintain a colony

Why?  Water can be produced from ice and humidity, there is still enough solar power, air can be extracted from the martian air or from water, martian soil, perhaps after removing he perchlorates, can be used to grow food, and there are metals available on the planet and on phobos, and regolith can be used for bricks.  

1 hour ago, Green Baron said:

obody knows right now if they survive.

The radiation has been accurately measured by the curiosity rover.  

[Green Baron]

45 minutes ago, DAL59 said:

We haven't really tried though.  We need to do that(build a mock colony in the desert).  A desert would be a better place to test than Antarctica, because Antarctica has that ice sheet blocking access to the metals.  

Morning :-)

several times actually, from prehistory to right now. Latest reason for not being able to dwell a longer time is when ground water levels sink out reach (>2km). Water is being brought in then. And not only so in a desert, in some steppe areas the same problem exists. It is all not that easy ;-)

Quote

There are lava tubes on Mars.  Also, you could just pile dirt on the surface habs.  

First you have to build/prepare/secure/construct them. And for that you need more than a bucket and shovel, if i may say so trying to be funny :-)

Quote

Why?  Water can be produced from ice and humidity, there is still enough solar power, air can be extracted from the martian air or from water, martian soil, perhaps after removing he perchlorates, can be used to grow food, and there are metals available on the planet and on phobos, and regolith can be used for bricks.  

That water thing is less than clear, studies posted by several people here have shown that it is probably not enough and in the wrong places, that what might be there at all. You can't use water from the south pole in a house in the Atacama even on earth. Even fossil ground water in an earthly desert/steppe is/may be not enough to provide enough water for a settlement (see above).

Quote

The radiation has been accurately measured by the curiosity rover.  

Yes. And it is too high :-)

Edited December 15, 2017 by Green Baron

[tater]

Living on Mars is not an insurmountable engineering problem assuming that 0.38g is suitable for long-term human prospering. It is a none the less a non-trivial engineering problem. Our societies get by with a tiny minority of people deeply thinking about issues, and the bulk of the population just making/fixing stuff. The solutions might be very expensive, as well. Very expensive if they were to be done on Earth, plus the transportation costs of the solution to Mars might make it impossibly expensive for a location that will never have any way to pay for it.

That's the real issue with colonization of Mars, IMO. You need to get a group of people to sink vast quantities of money that can never have any RoI. 

And I mean quantities of money that exceed what Musk and Bezos have combined, probably by orders of magnitude.

[PB666]

Let's be clear, placing an outpost on Mars capable of lasting 4 years and completely dependent on supply ships is doable. A self-sustaining colony based on current technology is not going to happen anytime soon. It will unlikely be a thing in any of our life-times.

Before we talk about Mars we first need to talk about Earth. @DAL59   It is up to the proponents of a Mars colony to prove that this is viable in the current context, not up to the opponent to weaken the constraints of colony viability for the proponents sake.

1. Crucial to life is water, basically water that moves 'freely' between the gaseous and liquid phase. This process brings us fresh water. [Mars does not have a source of fresh water It means Water = [Energy] + precursors
Noting that surface hydrogen [H- , not molecular] is scarce on Mars and very abundant on Earth
2. While O2 is not critical to all life it is critical to complex eucaryotes. [CO2 + reductants + [energy] ------------> O2 + Carbon
Noting that surface hydrogen is scarce on Mars and very abundant on Earth, surface hydrogen is key on earth to reducing carbon, and you need lots of it because you need to lock carbon up for a very long time to make oxygen available.
3. Critical to life is vapor pressure . . N2, O2 in its break down on Earth. Martian Air relative to Earth has none of the components to sustain life. This means that all living things must be contained and pressurized. this makes building and repairing structures on Mars difficult. Spacesuits are not magic, they fail, and when they fail on Mars the wearer is spaced. Without substantial vapor pressure endothermic life is nearly impossible, particular vapor pressure of water, which on Mars is practically zero, because there is virtually no water on the surface of Mars. The only viable way to get the vapor pressure up on mars is to raid the Kuiper-belt for ice and transport them back to Mars . . . . .very expensive and requires Fusion.
4. Critical to life on Earth is photosynthesis, it is not obligate, there are archea that can live off of earthen energy sources, but for advanced Eucaryotes photosynthesis is key. To get get this to fly you need sunlight (149²/229² =  0.42. Mars gets 42% of the sunlight from Earth. A fair number of plants, like C4 plants would make poor crops on Mars (discounting the above 3 problems) because these plants do not get adequate light to produce. On mars roughly you would need 3 times as much land and soil to grow crops, which is expensive on mars because it would all have to be enclosed. Mars has CO₂. CO₂ + sunlight + H₂0 ----->0₂ + sugar.
5. Critical to life on Earth is Nitrogen, nitrogen on earth comes from the Air and is created by lightning which is then absorbed by plants, nitorgen also comes from minerals in the earth that are acted upon by water. Martian atmosphere has virtually no nitrogen (it have virtually no anything), it has no water. Again we can bring nitrogen to Mars, but before we did that we would first need to figure out a way of keeping Mars from loosing all it atmosphere. While nitrogen does not appear to be critical, Nitrogen and Argon have buffering effects on the rate of oxygen, given that humans do need vapor pressure to survive, we then also need molecular nitrogen to survive, and Mars simply does not have what we need.

If you managed to solve these problems on a planetary scale, then the martian problem is solvable with tools we have already on Earth, you could build a mini-Earth, much less productive than Earth and with 1/100th the population, but you could.Otherwise the colony will not likely be self-sustaining. I make the logical argument that talking about what is possible on Mars in a 'terraformed' context is not a kosher argument, since it is not clear at the moment whether we possess enough usable energy technologies to do this. If we are talking about 1 Mt fusion reactors that are 1% efficient in power production then the atmospheric problems on Mars will never be a solved thing. If the above 5 can be solved, then martian regolith composition is not going to be a problem, trust me. However without the correction of these problems we can assume that humans, improving on their current skills, could bring all the things necessary for life and could extract C and O from martian atmosphere, assuming these to be the case what are the problems.

Based on conservative principles, terraforming Mars is best described as a B.S. argument. That means it makes hand-waving assumptions that cannot be proven to be true and should thus be eliminated from the argument, period. IOW, without a solid base of facts we can just say 'sprinkle fairy dust' and make any impossible scenario possible.

-----Does not need fusion power to achieve -------unsustainable colony that is functional---------------

Issue 1. Insufficient automation. Basically all processes outside need to be automated, humans would basically be the repairmen. (Which has its own sets of major issues, see problem with lunar moon dust). Logic. IN the near future (next 1000 to 10000 years), if we cannot solve the fusion problem, then Mars will unlikely to be 'atmosphered' to Earth-like composition. Before Mars is properly gased and magnetically protected, it would not be safe for humans to repeatedly expose themselves to 'spacing' by attempting to work outside, except in emergent situations. Building a colony does not qualify as emergent. Automation requires masses of specialized equipment. 

Issue 2. Erosion of equipment. Martian substrate is damaging to equipment. A desired working area would need to be cleaned of all loose substrate and a barrier around the area would need to be built sufficiently high enough to prevent larger particles from entering the work area. Eventually you would want the area covered so that loose dust did not enter.  To prevent this you would need gas-phase cleaning stations that blow the dust off and collect it. This would create a compound.

Issue 3. Batteries, a martian colony would need a huge reserve of batteries capable of storing power. There are no coal-fire power plants on Mars, there is no coal, no fire and no plants. More importantly it would need to be able to make batteries on Mars. Current batteries of high efficiency are made with Lithium, . . . no readily apparent at concentrations needed on Mars. Energy could be stored in pressurized underground caverns but there is no air to pressurize. Assuming we could assemble batteries on Mars (unlikely in the near term so thinking out 200 years from now) this problem is solvable.

Issue 4. Importing and protecting the solar power. Given the above desired enclosure of work area, you can have durable plastics that cover the solar panels during dust storms that also cover the entire 'compound' preventing the entering of dust. We can have fission reactors and heavy fusion reactors on Mars (within the next 100 years however I don't see how). Because Mars has a surface it is possible to build out equipement that cools the heat -exchangers. But real power on Mars would have to come from solar, Mars colony then need much better solar panels. In the near term (next 200 years) Mars colonies live off of solar and low power decay-energy units. As a consequence in the near term mars needs alot of solar-panels to survive.

Issue 5. Digging into mars (automation of tunneling). This solves several of the problems. A. Pressure, the lower you go into mars the easier it is to pressurize things. Also the easier it is to trap humidity. B. Radiation, the lower you go the less energetic the cosmic and EM radiation is C. Climate control, the lower you go the easier it is to deal with day night shifts. D.  Humanance, the lower you go the easier it would be to find soil on mars representative of a past mars that was more organic and hydrogenated. Digging however presents its own problems, the erosive regolith can no longer be isolated from the equipment. Another problem is that excavation equipment is very heavy and there are no manufacturing of equipment on Mars. One solution is to use microbots that pick sediment out of the rocks creating cells that could be pulled out in one piece and used as building blocks (for shelters or substrate barriers) [this technique was used by the Egyptians to form the blocks of the pyramids but on a softer substrate]. The martian digging problem is a problem, but if we brought substrate back from Mars we could design over the next 25 years technologies that could deal with it. Tunneling is just good logic, because it give you a potentially automatic secondary/tertiary containment but also because potential pressurization of this system is also a warning system of a leaks in primary containment. In addition, via tunneling it may be possible to find trapped reserves of water that have been protected from the effects of surface evaporation. We need however first to build autonomous tunneling equipment that will retrieve power, dispose of substrate, and analyze their process.

Issue 6. Trapping volatiles. At martian pressures many things on earth that are liquids become gas, at least at standard temperatures. As stated above hydrogen is a premium element on Mars compared to Earth. This means we need to trap elemental hydrogen, this is a problem because water seeks its own level. For example if you water plants in a green-house, the water will just go down into the substrate and you will have to get more. So farming would be need to be contained, either in glass or in durable plastics (which contain hydrogen).  The farming then needs to be such as to trap volatiles. This is a big problem if you have ever seen the way a green house is run, water runs everywhere. So greenhouse areas would need secondary and tertiary containment systems. They probably need to be insulated on all sides, and thus LED lighting and solar electric power is going to be a thing on Mars. For at least  a time the colony would dependent on Earth for Carbon. Tunnels will need to be dug, enclosures made, fluid based cooling systems installed with radiators on the surface. I can see this evolving over time to a more self sustaining process (maybe 100 years).

Issue 7. Balancing artificial ecosystems and scaling up self-sustenance. See Biosphere experiments. NASA is probably better at it, but they do so in a high professional environment with resupply every few months. Martian colonies will need to be independent for 4 years. We know that adding lots of compost to the system is just not going to work in closed space, so that we are talking about artificial plant growth systems, not gardens or rain forest. Its all going to be LED lights and conical rooms with wall-to-wall plants and lights. Short term no energy foods, fats can come from earth, nutrition comes from greenhouses. Or put it otherwise, untill you can grow a grove coconut palm on Mars forget about mars as a bulk source of human calories. The martian regolith as I stated above is not a death nail, human fecal waste can be mixed with garden waste and this mixed with martian dust and some source of acidity which will in special enclosures bio-remediate the soil. This should be used by automated farming units (for example tuber farming or peanut farming - as these return nitrogen to the earth you can use these to remove nitrogen from CO2-N2 mixtures drawn in from the surface and converted to nutrients for farming).

Issue 8. Self-sustainance. Given that above we did not manage to get fusion to Mars a self sustaining colony is not possible, but it might be possible to get colonies that need low attendance, say once every 10 years supplies traded between the colony and earth bound ships. One of the benefits of growing stuff on Mars is its isolation from diseases on earth, such as plant diseases. Plants could be grown on mars as a seed repository for species on Earth that are endangered by diseases. For example you could be working on providing seedlings that are resistant from Dutch elm disease,  . . . . . .This is probably the most difficult problem, however, for Mars in the sense that there are so many ecosystems on Earth it is difficult to find a place that is better suited on Mars than it is on Earth. The other idea is that Mars would be a refuge from an Earthen Armageddon. I would say no, if Mars requires Earth for essentials like LED, etc. . .there is no way for Mars to be a refuge from an Earthen disaster, it would only be the last grave dug.

The basic problem with DAL's argument is that he has a tendency to hand-wave problems away. Provided we have X,Y,and Z we can.

This falls in the logical fallacy of the serial if problem.

If A and If B and If C and if D then E, where each subquent argument is false if the previous argument is false. If we have fusion and if we can get fusion to work in space and if we can find a way to import frozen gas from space-time isoquant X to space-time isoquant Mars, and if we can stop the erosions of the Martian atmosphere but solar storms then we can terraform Mars.
Probability of workable fusion - good - scale is 100,000s of tons on Earth.
Probability of workable fusion in space poor, probability of a fusion work around - fair. Likelihood that we could get a working fusion reactor on Mars, this would require a fully fledged colony capable of building such a reactor from parts and a massive (10x times that on earth), heat exchanger. Not near-future or mid-future but more like far-future. Mars could become  destination for Nuclear waste, in which case you could use latent heat to generate power. Of course one bad landing and . . . . .
Probability of a scale of operation that brings adequate mass from outer solar system to inner solar system - poor. This requires efficient space fusion and a type of generator and heat radiator with efficiencies that are in the mid-future range of possibilities.
Probability that we can stop erosion of Martian atmosphere - poor.

Conclusion, in its current state mars is unlikely to ever have a self sustaining colony. For this to occur certain constraints on space travel need to change.

In the current world circumstance (looking out 200 years) we would need a colossal investment in terraforming Mars to get there. Given our recent progress just to get back to the moon let alone the decadal projections on Mars sample return and human landing attempts (by four space capable bodies on Earth) it is clear that a timeline for Terraforming mars is not in Earths short or mid term future. Alas the technologies for doing this are not present and neither is the investment capital.

Conclusion, the political will to advance the colonization of Mars is not there.

Colonization of Mars is not likely' and it will not be a thing in the near future. So we can cool the argument to a level where we use facts not sci-fi based 'dream' sites.

 

Edited December 15, 2017 by PB666

[DAL59]

3 hours ago, PB666 said:

We can have fission reactors and heavy fusion reactors on Mars (within the next 100 years however I don't see how).

Actually, it is supported by MDRF 5

Quote

The mass for a 30-kWe reactor that could accommodate propellant ISRU is estimated at about 8,000 kg.

 

Even though complete self sufficiency might be impossible in the near term, if asteroid mining is introduced as well, most of the resource problems are prevented.

[PB666]

2 minutes ago, DAL59 said:

Actually, it is supported by MDRF 5

 

30 kW is nothing. To mine the surface of Mars and the like you need 2 magnitudes more than this. What you are talking about is a trickle, to colonize you need a flood.

[PB666]

The argument here is this, what has Mars and what has space?

So here is a given, we can intercept (done) a comet, wrap the comet with a stabilizer, and redirect that comet.
Given we can intercept an asteroid, redirect that asteroid to an orbit that has a comet.

If we can do this then everything we need to build a space colony is already present in space, its just not in the places we need it to be. If we move a comet to Mars, it immediately gets diluted a trillion times.

From  a human perspective a comet has an unlimited supply of gases we need. It has H, O, B, Ar, C, N, etc.
Asteroids have many of the metals and including higher concentrations of some useful metals than found on the surface of the Earth.

So then what has a space colony that Mars does not have . . . .easy access to gases . . . . .power 24/7. . . .  lower dV (potentially) to Earth . . . .lower cost for return voyages . . . .

Will we colonize space or Mars first.
First - we already have an outpost in space, its been in operation in extension with Mir something like 31 years. We have not even sent a human to mars
Second - Have we successfully grown anything on Mars, nope, have done so on ISS.
Third - do we have a way of getting folks to Mars and back. We might be able with current technology to get them to mars, we don't currently have a technology to get them back.
(As Elon Musk said he wants to live long enough on Mars. . . .) but again we have to assume he has no means of getting back to Earth, which may be good because right now it does not appear humans could survive a round trip.
 

What do we need to do in space or on Mars to achieve a better occupancy
1. Build a factory - DSG may be a means, Heavy launch systems could lift a factory into space. Alternatively it could be assembled. Landing a factory on Mars at current seems impossible. Its not impossible, but it would require a space tug to haul a huge amount of fuel from earth to LMO and then transfer it.
2. Sustain life in a shielded environment (all you need really need is compressed hydrogen around your space-craft) on Mars you need to dig down. Digging and placing landed structures on Mars is a mid-future far-future technology.
3. How much G is acceptable (Space can be spun past 1g) on mars G is limited to 0.38g. If we had to, and had the money we could have a gravimetric crew quarter in a space station within a few years, for Mars it would take at least 20 years more likely 50 just to get living quarters on Mars with proper exercise equipment. In addition in space we can move people from low-g to high G environments providing the proper gravity for multiple occupations.
For example in properly spun space craft you could have a high G environment for exercise, for working with small parts and equipment, but a low G environment for assembling large pieces of equipment. On mars there is only one G available (excepting Merry-go-round like work out facilities) again getting these facilities on Mars would be a costly problem.
4. In space and on Mar you have radiation. In space we can have major habitations close to Earth, we can also shield habitats with Hydrogen enriched materials (such as carbon fiber) with a coating of carbon-fiber that is particularly rich in hydrogen. On mars you have to dig in.
5. In space insolance can be continuous, on Mars it might have 2/3rds of the day without power up to almost all of the day depending on latitude. This means more batteries or fission power.

6. You don't need a viable Mars to get into space and live in space, you do need viable space habitats to get to Mars. Much of the infrastructure for getting to Mars safely and back would already be suitable for colonization of space. Mars just adds another trickier step.

Problems in both.

Acute solar storms can destroy certain electronics including solar panels, thus these need to be improved and made more resilient to solar wind. (Hayabusa as an example). There may need to be a repair facility.
 

[kerbiloid]

I believe we should develop huge bi-directional teleports and place them on the celestial bodies.

Of course, they should follow the conservation laws, so total impulse, momentum and energy must stay constant.
Teleporting something from Venus to Mars should cause a reverse teleportation of equivalent mass.

Then we can connect different atmospheres like a set of bath pipes.

Hot CO2 from Venus would flow to Mars and make its atmosphere dense. Simultaneously this will make Venus cold _again.
Sending cold hydrogen from any gas giant wil make Venus colder, and make water on any planet with O2 and so on.

Edited December 15, 2017 by kerbiloid

[DAL59]

4 hours ago, PB666 said:

do we have a way of getting folks to Mars and back. We might be able with current technology to get them to mars, we don't currently have a technology to get them back.

Even without ISRU, with enough brute force, or lots of small missions, a return mission is possible.  

[PB666]

1 hour ago, kerbiloid said:

I believe we should develop huge bi-directional teleports and place them on the celestial bodies.

Of course, they should follow the conservation laws, so total impulse, momentum and energy must stay constant.
Teleporting something from Venus to Mars should cause a reverse teleportation of equivalent mass.

Then we can connect different atmospheres like a set of bath pipes.

Hot CO2 from Venus would flow to Mars and make its atmosphere dense. Simultaneously this will make Venus cold _again.
Sending cold hydrogen from any gas giant wil make Venus colder, and make water on any planet with O2 and so on.

Of course you are joking.

[DAL59]

5 hours ago, PB666 said:

How much G is acceptable (Space can be spun past 1g) on mars G is limited to 0.38g. If we had to, and had the money we could have a gravimetric crew quarter in a space station within a few years, for Mars it would take at least 20 years more likely 50 just to get living quarters on Mars with proper exercise equipment. In addition in space we can move people from low-g to high G environments providing the proper gravity for multiple occupations.
For example in properly spun space craft you could have a high G environment for exercise, for working with small parts and equipment, but a low G environment for assembling large pieces of equipment. On mars there is only one G available (excepting Merry-go-round like work out facilities) again getting these facilities on Mars would be a costly problem.

You can have artificial gravity on Mars using tilted donuts.  

[PB666]

1 hour ago, DAL59 said:

Even without ISRU, with enough brute force, or lots of small missions, a return mission is possible.  

Sure Dal, this one is especially designed for CEOs (rope not provided)

This one weighs almost twice as much (29t) and can haul one living astronaut to LMO (dV = 5010), it has a docking port that can barely fit a gracile human. How we get something weighing 29ts on the surface of Mars, full of monopropellant, that is an issue all into itself.

16 tons (mostly monopropellant engines at ISP = 250) on Mars can lift a 0.05t object to LMO orbit (dV = 5100 m/s) to be carried back to earth. For the existing technology, that is to say no liquid H2, no liquid O2 your are looking at basically coffin carriers to LMO. ISRU right now, as per use on Mars, is still a fantasy. ISPs that are higher than 320 require liquid oxygen. ISPs above 375 require liquid hydrogen (excluding ION drives and NERVA given they cannot launch). [BTW if something looks strange about that craft, some of the parts are models I created].

49 minutes ago, DAL59 said:

You can have artificial gravity on Mars using tilted donuts.  

You mean sea-sickness machines.

Edited December 16, 2017 by PB666

[DAL59]

1 hour ago, PB666 said:

You mean sea-sickness machines.

Studies have shown people get used to it after a short while.

1 hour ago, PB666 said:

that is an issue all into itself.

Its called aerodynamic drag and supersonic retropropulsion, and has been though ally analyzed by both spacex and being for their respective landers.

[Diche Bach]

Well . . . to his credit Mr. Joe Scott (Dr. Joe Scott? not sure . . .) ALSO has another video that offers up the tacitly opposite viewpoint (I do love a fine rhetoritician!)

 

[PB666]

1 hour ago, DAL59 said:

Its called aerodynamic drag and supersonic retropropulsion, and has been though ally analyzed by both spacex and being for their respective landers.

You still have at least 500 m/s of drag and gravity waste to deal with at an end. And by the way spaceX hasn't dealt with anything, they have only created concepts, concepts that appear to changing rather frequently.

Edited December 16, 2017 by PB666

[PB666]

Let me refute some his reasons for going to mars.

1. Life sampling - actually better to let sterilized machines do the sampling.

2. To save our species - not actually true, if we colonized Mars, in the time frame in which the human species might suffer a species ending calamity on Earth our martian counterparts would have evolved into another species. There would be tremendous selection pressure to do so on Mars given the radically different way Martians would live. Such a calamity avoidance can also be done on a space colony with the caveot that from a space colony we could easily recolonize earth when things settle down. And what if the villians decide to nuke Mars. YOu can move colonies and see bad things coming, you cannot see a major nuclear strike from space on mars.  As one scientist pointed out if we need to terraform earth or Mars, terraforming Earth back to Earth again is alot easier. At the cost of building one self sufficient colony on Mars complete with transportation back to EM system you could build 10 space colonies with equal numbers of individuals. (because at the beginning you have to transport everything from earth and land it on Mars)

3. Technology boom - Yes but the same boom can be achieved by building a working space factory or a colony in space or as planned a lunar colony.

4. Inspirational - Yes the moon landing was so inspirational that we never went back in 40 years, that we slashed the space budget by 10 fold. Inspiration is not all that its cracked up to be. Risky also, what kind of finger pointing occurred after the challenger disaster, what kind of finger pointing will occur if astronauts die in transit or landing or are basically trapped on mars.

We could literally start a colony tomorrow in space, have a space station, just start adding structure, when its large enough cleave the structure into two parts, the second part then goes on and become its own station.

[kerbiloid]

4 hours ago, PB666 said:

Of course you are joking.

No, I'm just trying to be realistic.
Common atmosphere for all inhabited planets.
Thermodynamcal and chemical equilibrium.

Edited December 16, 2017 by kerbiloid

[DAL59]

26 minutes ago, PB666 said:

Inspiration is not all that its cracked up to be. Risky also, what kind of finger pointing occurred after the challenger disaster, what kind of finger pointing will occur if astronauts die in transit or landing or are basically trapped on mars.

I have to say I disagree.  Motivation and challenge as a society is very important.  Also, many argue the space shuttles were doomed from the start.  

28 minutes ago, PB666 said:

not actually true, if we colonized Mars, in the time frame in which the human species might suffer a species ending calamity on Earth our martian counterparts would have evolved into another species.

I'm not talking about the death of the sun.  I'm talking about things like supervolcanos and nuclear war, which could happen at any time.  

29 minutes ago, PB666 said:

actually better to let sterilized machines do the sampling.

light speed time delay

[PB666]

21 minutes ago, DAL59 said:

I'm not talking about the death of the sun.  I'm talking about things like supervolcanos and nuclear war, which could happen at any time.  

light speed time delay

I estimate that our species as we know it is around 200,000 years in age with leaky barrier to out lying species, this would set the time to previous being less than 5million years, and more likely there was a previous barrier around 2.0 million years ago. So for a control, under less selection it was 1.5 million years, the Sun won't begin expanding is size greatly for 200,000,000 years, so that means many species forming events can occur in that time.

The light speed time delay has nothing to do with sensing the presence of life. And in particular we might have a sample return mission. Even if we need to be in sensor range we could have a platform in LMO. But we don't, artificial intelligence has evolved to the point it could make all the determinations, but without contaminating life on Mars, or it contaminating us.

35 minutes ago, kerbiloid said:

No, I'm just trying to be realistic.
Common atmosphere for all inhabited planets.
Thermodynamcal and chemical equilibrium.

You mean about teleport . . .beam me up scotty . . . I hoped you were just joking.

[kerbiloid]

18 minutes ago, PB666 said:

You mean about teleport . . .beam me up scotty . . . I hoped you were just joking.

I thought they are joking, those who really talk about other planets colonization without it.

Edited December 16, 2017 by kerbiloid