Mars Colonization Discussion Thread

[tater]

I saw Apollo. Heck, as a baby I was apparently sat in front of Gemini flights (I'll have to take my mother's word on that). I expected Moon bases long ago. Ditto Mars.

I see the private space race as the best thing to happen in space... perhaps period, honestly. Because individuals do things with less constraint.

I think Musk's use of "we" means humanity. In his first talk, it was about getting the cost down to about the price of a house in the US (to move to Mars). There's no company to make Mars habs, so until there is, I don't care what he says about that, honestly. Heck, if he makes such an entity, it's his money, I certainly won;t be going to die inside on Mars, lol.

[CastleKSide]

the interesting thing about Mars is we actually have the tech to make a space elevator there. Due to the lower gravity, existing polymers would work.

[kerbiloid]

32 minutes ago, CastleKSide said:

the interesting thing about Mars is we actually have the tech to make a space elevator there. Due to the lower gravity, existing polymers would work.

A GMO producing plastic. Would breath CO2, consume water ice and excrete plastic threads. A colony growing from Martian equator towards Phobos.

Jack's Beans.

[sh1pman]

44 minutes ago, kerbiloid said:

A GMO producing plastic. Would breath CO2, consume water ice and excrete plastic threads. A colony growing from Martian equator towards Phobos.

Jack's Beans.

Back in November I met a researcher from Japan on a conference who managed to create a strain of bacteria that can produce plastic from CO2 and hydrogen. 

[PB666]

1 hour ago, DDE said:

And this brings us to a potential source of significant damage. Musk simply being a trucker service is not how the public perceives it anymore - especially since he needed a third party to build the propellant factory. Instead, SpaceX is perceived as an independent space agency that has long outmatched NASA. This sets Musk up for a massive failure to stand up to the public's extremely lofty expectations that is going to knock the wind out of the hype train.

This runs back to why I hate the "[soft] sci-fi raises support for actual science and spaceflight" argument - because it is patently untrue. The crowd that's in deep love with the X-Wing is at best a fairweather friend to the Soyuz - if not an outright problem, because they're conditioned into a wholly different mindset with a bunch of false assumptions. Should they run into reality and its own, entirely different set of challenges, which is more likely: a complete reconsideration of their mental image of the majority of the Universe, or a retreat back into fantasy with disregard or outright hostility to actual incremental development?

What happens should Musk backpedal further, or when he nearly inevitably fails to deliver (seeing as the hype has long outrun any plausible outcomes)? There is a finite amount of flying fraks the public has to give, and one should use them more sparingly. Considering Mars colonization will still be quite dependent on political will and thus hype, someone in the post-Musk era might find that quite a few bridges have been irreversibly burnt.

There are profound insights here, BUT . . . . . I don't live in the world that I think should be but the one that exists.

Philosophically there are several implicit issues here and I will try to unmuddle them as scientifically as I can, because they deserve to be deconvoluted and discussed. We all share the same goal here, to see human-kind advance themselves and in particular advance themselves in space. Its been a long way . . . . .

Philosophically to start with when Okkam postulated his razor he had no inclination about science or the scientific method, he just wanted to curtail the use of ad-hoc arguments [this is a hat-tip to our moderator since he does not like my commonly use perjoratives] in theology. As western theology self-divided itself into physical sciences and pure theological arguments, science adopted the razor as a support for the scientific method (which evolved in its current form much later). The problem he was dealing with was not about reality but perception. . [if you want to seek perception you should watch the Susskind's 1st lectures Quantum Entanglement and QM (part of a 7 part series on physics <-free) but also Carlo Rovelli's lecture on Time, philosophically this says everything . . if you don't you wont understand much of what I say] . . the way we perceive the world and then try to explain the world in a context we already believe to be true with generally a primitive understanding of the underlying reality. In that time it was a largely ethnic oral traditions.  None the less, there were people, who in deep reflection found ways to question these 'truths'.  They are not questioning the traditions, first they were interrogating themselves and it is not surprising that the first questions arose from the clergy (there are much older and deeper references). Gregor Mendel is a perfect example of when given to thought comes up with profound understandings of nature. Society has shed itself largely of these prejudices we have not exactly preserved the benefits. This discussion is not about science, it effects science, yes, but it is not about physical science, science can only explain the roots of the perception error, the scale at which we perceive the universe and the way in which our brains integrate information.

There are so many competing senses out there . . . the question you have to ask is what should people be interested and how do you inspire their interest. At the same time you ask the question, you have to know what is dividing those interest. And these divisors are not benign, the distributors of information are very well knowledgeable on how to take advantage of peoples emotions as distributors have always been. One competing sense is that everyone ignores space altogether, this could happen. Imagine this scenario, everyone is given a free handheld device, we are all connected. In a process of displaying the right sets of images we are turned to websites that constantly ping our adrenal glands and keep us qlued into 100 so sites (none particularly having to do with space).  The beast you are dealing with is not Musk, its the human mind, we still carry these pain/pleasure centers that evolved as we crawled out of some primordial ocean. Its exactly the same thing Okkam was dealing with not only in his colleagues  but in his own mind. Socrates, after all was right about Athenian society, but also true, keeping his mouth shut would have kept him alive.[Coughing very loudly]

The psychological side of the proclivities argument is what qualifies as addictive behavior and what qualifies as rational behavior and also is there ever truly a completely rational set of behaviors. And again its looking more and more that we are easily prone toward addictive behaviors but also there is a commercial sector out there that is adept and keen to exploit them . . .we need an internet Okkam.

In this light, how do you get kids interested in space and science but even more importantly (as noted above) how do you teach them to become abstract thinkers, to think outside of their predisposed sensibilities (break the primordial umbilical cord). Science is a means of seeing irrationality, but it is not a immunization against irrational behaviors. Hundreds of other adrenal pinging things (randomly some of them maybe space related) also have our interests. I don't know if there is a best way to revive space interest, but I do see out on the horizon that there are easy ways that can destroy space science. Alternatively, I  see a number of small (thrill seeking?) groups trying to build their own multi-chemical rockets; this is not an amateur sport . .  there could be harmful ways of channeling interest. Minimally some of these new-space companies should have R&D apprenticeships that sponsor the small discovery market so that people who are interested enough to build their own rockets have a place that they can go and learn from professionals how to safely build and test. I am not kidding, I have seen a couple of people killed in the most horrific ways from playing with explosives (one of them lost his face and a third survivor lost his foot). Their behaviors were irrational.  Redox reactions produce large amounts of energies in very unpredictable ways. Certainly launching a steam rocket to prove the earth is flat is irrational. Again if they are doing this for You-tube hits and popularity . . . . . . . not better than Space X. [Note the inequity]

But there is a deeper fundamental problem, we know, physically, what the limit to chemical energy is, we also have nearly perfected efficient energy transformation into light and information (if we so desire), but the problem that we need to study is not something you can do at home. This is a problem of social complexity, the more complex a system becomes the more one needs increasingly complex solutions to add ordered complexity. We need young people who are willing to dive deeply into the fundamentals of the universe and then apply them to RL problems including space. It is my experience that most of these are not romantic or you-tube worthy.  

The second philosophical underlies the fade of space interest of the public sector. This has been discussed ad-nausea here so I will not rehash the problem. NASAs funding relative to GDP has steadily been falling since the late 1970s, and its not just NASA its also NSF and NIH (relative to GDP since the mid 1980s). The reflex is that we have to change the cost of doing science (very expensive now-a-days because of all the certifications and regulations added) or change who and how it is funded, or more simply move science elsewhere. Systemically for the west this is problematic, because we are competing against societies where science is evolving rapidly and increasingly funded (and this maybe the solution, evolution and kin selection). Once you do something with government money there are a whole bunch of rules that come into play, largely intended for big industries are big law enforcement that are extremely inefficiently handled (or mandated and largely unfunded or defunded) at the research level. Space X can take advantage of this by moving parts of its operation out of the public sector. This is not a SpaceX problem.

Part of the space problem (see below) is that we hit a thermodynamic chemical energy wall.. You need 11,300 m/s dV to leave earth orbit, and our chemical rockets have exhaust velocities  of 4500 m/s. There are several reason this problem has stuck to us. First our sense of risk in the Post WWII period was alot lower than current risk, and the two shuttle disasters created questions about whether other interests were being placed before NASAs primary interest. But there are deeper problems than that, we have been resting on our laurels with regard to the entropy problem as it pertains to space. One could almost argue given the two pioneer and voyager missions, we have back-stepped (or side-stepped). Entropy makes space (us) both possible and modern space hard. To understand entropy you have to understand that pure propulsion F = 2 * power * efficiency/Ve (stating this for light N = power/3E8 m/s),. If you set Efficiency as it starts from power at the power plant down to the drive (see fine print below) we get a sense of how important management is. To be very mass efficient you need alot of net power. This makes everything harder, more risky and potentially unpopular (nuclear impulse propulsion). Some have called the propulsion problem the tyranny of the rocket equation. Ultimately it limits space travel to small fractional C and generally low acceleration. The general public does not grasp the problem as a whole. Before KSP, i didn't. It was through playing with my creations and making them as RL as possible that the problem becomes apparent. [Nuclear is a solution that bad entropy management thwarts; those ships overheat and waste >70% of their power, in that they also expose equipment and passengers, unnecessarily, to higher levels of radiation. Avoiding fusion because even if you had fusion you could not launch it into space and also land fusion on Mars (not without a retro-propulsion-fuel depots orbiting Mars). We can think about the entropy problem like this, if you can build at 10% efficiency a 1 kw reactor with a certain sized intrinsic radiator generating 100 w of power and wasting 10% on cooling  - - - > 90 watts. You can build a 2 kw reactor at 55% efficiency and getting 1095 watts of power. You can build a 4 kw at 77.5% efficiency, 3 kw net electric power. At 99% efficiency you can build a 99KW reactor and get 98KW of power. Again if you are talking about efficient electric propulsion that is a starter, but what you really need is millions of KW. So that is the entropy problem in a nutshell.]

The fundamental philosophical question of space and space science.
Entropy is about time (or vis versa) and both are about quantum gravity. The greatest enemy of long term spaceflight is the inability to manage entropy. If we do not learn about fine-scale structure of space (i.e. the quantum-classical resolution problem) then the applied fundementals will be harder, more random.  The sci-fi warp drive, wormholes, etc are tantamount to promotion of false understandings, in lieu of good understanding of spacetime we instead conjecture about possibilities in imagined spacetime.[tip of the hat to Carlo Rovelli]

We will find it more difficult to manage heat in space and interstellar may never be a thing without sustained progress in theoretical physics.  Understanding this problem lies the potential solution to global power production, efficiency, conservation. It is the same thing with living on Mars. The limiting resource is energy, how to make it where it is needed most and how to conserve it. How do we get to this understanding, building 10 more Ligo experiments on the surface of the Earth?                                     We need better and cheaper access to space. SpaceX is an economic forcing sprite. But it is current only superficially attacking the basic problem, which i defined above . . .but its better than no attack at all or the random walks we are currently in. Cannae also needs to be fully tested in space, not because of what it can do, but what it can teach us.

So for the sprite to succeed in space it will have to tackle a new set of problems, one that will require it to seek expertise well outside of the physics that it is used to dealing with, so the hope is that Musk has enough knowledge of physics (I think he does) to push also those boundaries. Entropy is as relevant in space as it is on Mars, Ceres, Europa, whatever you chose . . . .nuclear will be close by and needs to be efficient, ideally fast breeder reactors with no waste, safe. So that it really doesn't matter where you test the systems, just as long as you are separated from the Earth's generous heat sinks.

[Noting again the comparison] So let me point my finger at some others (Arthur) making hypey statements, because Musk is not alone, just more popular. Fusion electric power is not a thing, and even if fusion was a thing, it needs to become 3 magnitudes more net efficient at heat conversion. By the very fact we are talking about . . it has barely enough energy output to sustain the fusion reaction  . . .means that this is generations away from being a solution . And really I think we lack a clear understanding of the fundamental thermodynamics is required. If we did we might find out that its impossible or we might find it has limited utility. Who is going to push these entropy based systems to their efficiency limits . . . Boeing, ULA, Northrup-Grumman, RSA, Morton-Thiokol, Lockheed Martin, ESA, NASA, CERN . . [note all the comparisons].

What are their vested interests at seeking out more efficient power systems for space-craft and are they dutifully progressing on those interests?

Clearly we need more motivated people working on problems and sometime it is the interloper that stirs the pot. Critique is unbounded, once you start on SpaceX it fairly diffuses outward by comparison. Case in point the discussion between Doug Ellison and Elon Musk points to two different perspectives of how space should be done. One perspective is elitist and the other one is populist, there is harm in extremes of both perspectives. Whether or not you think ULA is a good company, they do not, given their preferential contract obligations, have any profound reason to make their organization that competitively undermines itself; that only comes with the threat of increased outside competition and recognition in the public sector. Its not a pretty way to do things, but it is the way western space interests are currently compelled. In this environment competitors are known to conflate.

These are three areas that I have divided this problem up, but all three come back to the issue of glittering personalities and popularity how to manage them in the public space, who is really to blame? I stop watching the news and tossed my handheld 2 years ago, dumped my google search engine . . . . . . .Musk is only a sprite, there are millions. Some better most worse. Think about chugging though all the media, Snap chat, Facebook, Reddit, Twitter, Tumbler, etc all day long just to find the latest hype . . . . .is this not just feeding the monster, who is the monster us or them.

 

 

[Kerbal7]

Just finished reading How we'll live on Mars. One of the more preposterous daydreams of living on Mars is how we'll terraform it. We will build a mirror 300 miles across at Mars. Put it in orbit where it directs sunlight on the South Pole and starts a runaway greenhouse effect that warms the planet up nicely. Mmm'kay.

We can't control our own planets atmosphere, so where are we getting the expertise to do it on another? With a 300 mile long mirror no less. Constructed at Mars!  Hehe! This is considered "plausible" to the Martian colony dreamers.

 

Edited February 21, 2018 by Kerbal7

[kerbiloid]

17 minutes ago, Kerbal7 said:

a 300 mile long mirror no less. Constructed at Mars!

Easily.

Let's just melt Phobos, extract all its alumina, polish it and make a 300 mile long mirror.

P.S.
Important!
Do we need nautical miles or landlubbers miles are good enough?

[DAL59]

5 hours ago, Kerbal7 said:

We can't control our own planets atmosphere,

We can, we just aren't.  

5 hours ago, Kerbal7 said:

Put it in orbit where it directs sunlight on the South Pole and starts a runaway greenhouse effect that warms the planet up nicely. Mmm'kay.

What's wrong with that?

[sh1pman]

2 minutes ago, DAL59 said:

What's wrong with that?

Trying to increase the density of atmosphere on Mars is pointless, without magnetic field it'll be blown away into space by solar wind anyway. 

[KG3]

12 minutes ago, sh1pman said:

Trying to increase the density of atmosphere on Mars is pointless, without magnetic field it'll be blown away into space by solar wind anyway. 

Maybe this has been discussed here already but what kind of air would people on Mars be breathing?  I mean in whatever pressurized environments they will be living in?  It seems like the nitrogen we enjoy so much here on Earth is a bit scarce on Mars.  Would they be breathing pure oxygen at low pressure like they did in Apollo or will they have to import nitrogen from Earth or some other place?     

[Green Baron]

11 minutes ago, KG3 said:

Maybe this has been discussed here already but what kind of air would people on Mars be breathing?  I mean in whatever pressurized environments they will be living in?  It seems like the nitrogen we enjoy so much here on Earth is a bit scarce on Mars.  Would they be breathing pure oxygen at low pressure like they did in Apollo or will they have to import nitrogen from Earth or some other place?     

Nobody knows. Pure oxygen is very bad idea. It is aggressive and a spark from plastic pants to chair will cause a fire that burns until oxygen is gone, which it did on Apollo. But the inhabitants will be gone before the oxygen;-)

No colony in foreseeable time.

[Bill Phil]

47 minutes ago, sh1pman said:

Trying to increase the density of atmosphere on Mars is pointless, without magnetic field it'll be blown away into space by solar wind anyway. 

Over millions of years, making lack of a magnetic field a non-issue. Now we have an issue of bringing enough mass for a dense enough atmosphere...

[kerbiloid]

50 minutes ago, KG3 said:

Would they be breathing pure oxygen

If they don't need teeth and lungs.

51 minutes ago, KG3 said:

what kind of air would people on Mars be breathing? 

Chlorine-rich.

[Green Baron]

51 minutes ago, Bill Phil said:

Over millions of years, making lack of a magnetic field a non-issue. Now we have an issue of bringing enough mass for a dense enough atmosphere...

Even if that is true (which is less than clear), it is still much faster than any realistically imaginable process could make it there. Magnetic field is of course an issue for surface radiation which kills plants and animals. Earth's atmosphere's mass is in the range of 10¹⁸ tons. That are Quintillions. Make it a two magnitudes less for Mars.

Earth's atmosphere looses in the range of several tons of H and He per day, despite its high gravity and magnetic field. Make it several 1000 tons on Mars with a third of earth's gravity and no shield. Even O and N would probably escape as well (should be checked, they can't escape from Earth).

Such masses cannot be hauled about the place.

[tomf]

1 hour ago, Green Baron said:

Nobody knows. Pure oxygen is very bad idea. It is aggressive and a spark from plastic pants to chair will cause a fire that burns until oxygen is gone, which it did on Apollo. But the inhabitants will be gone before the oxygen;-)

No colony in foreseeable time.

You only need to have the earth sea level partial pressure of oxygen of 0.21 atmospheres for humans to breath confortably (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_suit section of operating pressure)

Keeping your atmosphere low pressure and nearly 100% oxygen would make it much easier to secure your pressurized environment, and if my school level chemistry is correct then the rate of a reaction like burning is only affected by the partial pressure of a gas and not by the total pressure so fires aren't going to be more of a problem than on earth.

The problem for Apollo 1 was that the atmosphere was 100% oxygen AND the total pressure was just over atmospheric pressure

[kerbiloid]

12 minutes ago, tomf said:

Keeping your atmosphere low pressure and nearly 100% oxygen

they can say good-bye not just to their teeth and lungs, but to their eyes, too.

Of course, if they won't get fried earlier.

P.S.
Helium. They need helium.
Just imagine their speaking in oxy-helium air.

Edited February 21, 2018 by kerbiloid

[tomf]

5 minutes ago, kerbiloid said:

they can say good-bye not just to their teeth and lungs, but to their eyes, too.

Of course, if they won't get fried earlier.

P.S.
Helium. They need helium.
Just imagine their speaking in oxy-helium air.

What is going to happen to their teeth and eyes?

[kerbiloid]

40 minutes ago, tomf said:

What is going to happen to their teeth and eyes?

Pure oxygen breathing corrupts enamel and mucosa.

[tomf]

3 minutes ago, kerbiloid said:

Pure oxygen breathing corrupts enamel and mucosa.

Do you have a source for that? I've felt the effects of breathing high pressure oxygen (2.8 bar) myself, it becomes noticeably harder to breath afterwards but the wikipedia article on oxygen toxicity seems to confirm that hypobaric pure oxygen isn't a problem. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oxygen_toxicity#Hypobaric_setting

I want to understand why my basic knowledge of chemistry is misleading. 

[DDE]

4 hours ago, sh1pman said:

Trying to increase the density of atmosphere on Mars is pointless, without magnetic field it'll be blown away into space by solar wind anyway. 

Not in human lifespans.

...Sorry to preach to the choir.

Edited February 21, 2018 by DDE

[KG3]

1 hour ago, kerbiloid said:

P.S.

Helium. They need helium.
Just imagine their speaking in oxy-helium air.

Is there a source of helium on Mars?  I know that helium on Earth is produced by natural radioactive decay of uranium and is trapped in pockets of natural gas where it can be collected in commercial quantities.  Mars does have occasional and mysterious burps of methane gas but could there be productive pockets of helium too?  

[Green Baron]

31 minutes ago, DDE said:

Not in human lifespans.

You mean, you have it magically appear in Quintillions (deduct a 0 if you like) of tons and then it slowly runs off ? Yeah, magic changes the game.

[/irony]

Pure oxygen at low pressure for longer time does not work, as said your lung's alveoles collapse over time.

Also: Oxygen on a place like Mars will be soaked off fast to oxidise the environment through weathering etc. You'd have to wait a few 100 millions of years before conditions become stable and meanwhile add atmosphere after atmosphere (quintillions after quintillions of tons) until the upper crust is oxidised through and at the same time counter the boiloff on the upper rim to space. Forget it ;-)

It's all not that easy guys, we are talking about processes, masses, timelines and energies that by far exceed everything we know and have and probably will ever now and have.

 

Let's stay with the fantastic plastic bubbles that form a colony; for now ;-)

 

Edit: Marsian crust is more porous then Earth's, the process will even take longer and go deeper.

Edited February 21, 2018 by Green Baron

[Antstar]

On 10/6/2017 at 6:51 AM, kerbiloid said:

Due to highly automated environment, the staff is mostly engineers and scientists (i.e. educated persons).
So, at any moment ~100 kilohumans out of the Earth at once — a permanent immediate reserve cultural pool if the Earth gets suddenly crashed by a natural disaster or an alien attack.
Their task is not to live independently from the Earth (as writers dream), but in case if the Earth had gotten dead — start restoring its usage and repopulation.

This seems super, super dangerous. A smart (and completely rational but unemotional) person would have to conclude that in the long term Earth would be better off being deliberately destroyed and then reseeded from the superior breeding stock you are sending to Mars...

On 10/7/2017 at 3:14 AM, GreenWolf said:

If you have the technology to create a closed-cycle life support system that is self-sustaining (or needs only a relatively small amount of occasional materials inputs) and capable of indefinitely supporting human habitation in space, why would you go to the trouble of building it on the surface of another planet, which would require you to haul everything up and down two gravity wells and across vast interplanetary distances?

 

Ahh, but humans are out-of-control exponential breeders. I'd wager that you can create additional hab space and life support on Mars quicker than you can on an asteroid.

 

My answer is that we will colonise Mars eventually. Because we are humans and it is Mars. Once there, we will dig in and breed away. If we take as an axiom that preserving humans is a good thing, then colonising Mars is a good thing. Forget trade. Like the good old imperial days when Europeans spread out far beyond the distance they could supply, Earth will have to prop it up for a bit (perhaps it will be mostly assets owned by a corporation ) but  people will become self sufficient there - by the time we are in a position to actually make a permanent settlement there they will have the capability

[Kerbal7]

3 minutes ago, Antstar said:

If we take as an axiom that preserving humans is a good thing, then colonising Mars is a good thing.

How on earth is colonizing that grossly inhospitable red ball good for preserving humans? The atmosphere will kill you. The radiation will kill you. The temperature will kill you. Just bringing some boot dirt into your habitat from a surface stroll will kill you. The long term gravity effects will probably kill you. Can't see it.  

[tater]

22 minutes ago, Antstar said:

My answer is that we will colonise Mars eventually. Because we are humans and it is Mars. Once there, we will dig in and breed away. If we take as an axiom that preserving humans is a good thing, then colonising Mars is a good thing. Forget trade. Like the good old imperial days when Europeans spread out far beyond the distance they could supply, Earth will have to prop it up for a bit (perhaps it will be mostly assets owned by a corporation ) but  people will become self sufficient there - by the time we are in a position to actually make a permanent settlement there they will have the capability

I would say that a precursor to this statement would require testing human compatibility with Martian gravity. Radiation, life support, etc, is an engineering issue. If the gravity won't cut it, Mars is a non-starter.

Tether 2 habs, spin them to martian gravity, and start raising generations of mammals, and study the embryology, development, etc. That's a boundary value. If mammals and Mars don;t get along, then a "backup" for humanity require orbital stations spun to some higher gravity equivalent (we know 1g works, but some other value might be OK).

As others have pointed out, however, the technology required to colonize space comes with the ability to mitigate most existential risks to Earth. If we can mine asteroids, we can divert them, in short.

I think in the long term we should avail ourselves of our "cosmic endowment," but I'm unsure if Mars will ever be part of that.