Slashdot Mirror
Richard Branson 'Determined To Start a Population On Mars'
RocketAcademy writes "British billionaire Richard Branson, whose Virgin Galactic company is backing the development of SpaceShip Two, has told CBS News he is 'determined to start a population on Mars.' He said, 'I think over the next 20 years, we will take literally hundreds of thousands of people to space and that will give us the financial resources to do even bigger things. That will give us the resources then to put satellites into space at a fraction of the price, which can be incredibly useful for thousands of different reasons.' Branson isn't the only billionaire interested in the Red Planet. Elon Musk, founder of Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX), wants to put humans on Mars in the next 12 to 15 years."
Compelling reasons: well, for starters, that colony would be insurance against an extinction-level asteroid impact here on Earth. So there's that.
I think wanting Mars-tronauts to be "productive" and whinging about the cost and the "enormous expense of keeping them alive" somewhat disqualifies you from this conversation. Humans moving beyond the confines of Earth is Manifest Destiny. It's inevitable. Man must always have frontiers, else, he is not Man.
Also, Richard Branson isn't requiring you to bless his spreadsheet, because his effort is privately funded. No one asked you if you thought it would be profitable.
(I'm all for renewables, but you can't demand that private individuals pay for solar panels for all of us. Realistically, it's probably a reasonable thing for an obscenely rich guy to do with his own money. He could be blowing it influencing elections or any number of worse things. Use your imagination.)
Which reminds me...
CBS News: Doctor, you mentioned the ratio of ten women to each man. Now, wouldn't that necessitate the abandonment of the so-called monogamous sexual relationship, I mean, as far as men were concerned?
Branson: Regrettably, yes. But it is, you know, a sacrifice required for the future of the human race. I hasten to add that since each man will be required to do prodigious...service along these lines, the women will have to be selected for their sexual characteristics which will have to be of a...highly stimulating nature.
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
That's what people like me (space systems engineer, ie rocket scientist) are for.
Getting to Mars will be surprisingly inexpensive if you are smart about how you approach the problem:
* Seed factories - this is a collection of computer and remote controlled machine tools and robots, which not only produce useful products, but make more equipment to expand the factory. This is a small step from current factory automation. You use these seed factories on Earth to build your main factories, which in turn build your vehicles to get to orbit. Once in orbit you build more seed factories, and progressively work out to high orbit, Phobos, then Mars.
* Orbital mining - cuts way down on what you need to launch from Earth. The inner solar system if full of floating fuel depots and chunks of metal, otherwise known as asteroids/dead comets. We should use them.
* High leverage propulsion - Plasma thrusters, Skyhooks, Ramjets, and others. All of them perform much better than chemical rockets.
* Transfer Habitats - Pick an asteroid in orbit between Earth and Mars. Use the material for shielding, soil, possibly pressure vessel, and fuel production. Spin it at 1 gee. Ride in comfort to Mars and back, with fresh food, no bone loss, and no radiation worries. The habitat stays permanently in the transfer orbit, you use a capsule at both ends to arrive/leave the planet. Since the habitat is not going anywhere, it does not matter if it is heavy.
The first part - seed factories, makes sense for it's own sake, even if you never go to space. It cuts the cost of manufacturing on Earth. But it can help pay for the rest of it.
Except you wouldn't get any work done without men. Especially not any work that involves manual labor or operating machinery, such as building a colony.
I suspect that if you manage to fill a colony ship with women who can't handle manual labor in .38g, presumably with robotic assistance, or operate machinery even with tech support only a few light-minutes away, there is something deeply wrong with your selection criteria...
The martian biodome does not need to be closed, in the explicit sense.
There is plenty of whispy CO2 on the surface of mars. This is an external source of both carbon and oxygen.
The real issue would be the hydrogen component, needed to increase water supplies. The hydrogen would likely have to come from mineral sources.
The issue with closed system biodomes is the absurd amounts of carbon and water needed in them before they reach homeostasis. (And no, the earth's soil is not in any natural danger. It is in danger of being carbon depleted by chemical fertilizer use, but chemical fertilizer is not natural. The earth can sustain life for many millions more years assuming humans don't wreck it before then. The earth wouldn't be "used up", it would be "sterilized". Very important difference.)
Here's a thought experiment for you.
We send 500 colonists to mars, to a site that has been robotically constructed in advance, per existing plans.
Enroute, the humans eat, and make sewerage. This sewerage is sequestered during the 6 month sojourn, and possibly run through a reclimation system, since water is both heavy and essential.
When the humans land, they have 6 months worth of poo and used toilet paper to use as an asset. Urine contains high levels of ammonium ion, and poo contains large quantities of organic sponge, and microbial forms. Once processed by the water reclimation system, you have very concentrated orgaic fertilizer. 90% of it should be heated to kill the microbes, for health reasons. The remaining 10% is added sparingly to mixed potting soil mixtures (washed martian soil mixed with the heated septic solids) to provide microbial flora at sensble levels. Plants are grown in it.
As the plants are grown, martian atmosphere is collected using air compressors, and delivered to the growing rooms. This provides additional carbon, which the growing plants incorporate into cellulose, sugars, and proteins. Humans eat this material, producing more poo. The poo is treated, and mixed with more washed martian dirt, and more plants are planted.
The raw martian dirt is contaminated with a "toxic" salt, called perchlorate. (A cation of chlorine and 4 oxygen, bound to a metal anion.) This mineral is very useful as an oxygen source. Simply heating it up liberates elemental oxygen, reducing the perchlorate salt to a standard chloride. Collection of the perchlorates could supply a considerale portion of the habitat's oxygen supply. (Again, an external source.) The removal of the perchlorate is required to use the soil fr horticulture, so the biproducts of collection and seperation are both directly useful to the colony. Dirt mining would be a regular staple of colony operation.
Clay minerals, and (if present, such as in the sulfur complexes like gypsum which were detected by the other rovers) hydrate minerals would provide the missing hydrogen component.
That just leaves nitrogen as the remaining "must have!" Dependency. Sending it to mars as liquified gas as part of the colony loadout is a no brainer, but 100% self sufficency would require a local (martian) source.
So far, I have not heard of any discoveries of ammonium salts, and atmospheric levels are laughable. However, there are such nitrate salts found in arrid regions of earth as natural soil minerals, so I hold out hope that mars would have them as well.
Thats not up to Branson you muppet, it would be up to the son. Just like it would be up to the people who would volunteer for such a job... You know, like the people who volunteered to discover America and to go to the poles and to fly space rockets to the moon and such. Nobody held a gun at their heads!