How To Die On Mars

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."

Comments

Hobbit

[ArcadeMan]

There's still a big killer lurking out in space that can't be easily avoided: radiation.

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.

Re:Hobbit

[l0n3s0m3phr34k]

We don't need to. The vast canyon systems would provide more than enough caves and places to cap off. It's like a dome with the walls already built.

Re:Hobbit

[l0ungeb0y]

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!

Re:Hobbit

[jblues]

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

[TWX]

It always amazes me how so many proponents of 3d printing have no concepts of the centuries of technological developments and infrastructure necessary to support the culture that wants to use a 3d printer.

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.

Re:Hobbit

[Immerman]

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.

Re:Hobbit

[DerekLyons]

There's still a big killer lurking out in space that can't be easily avoided: radiation.

Except underground, which is the obvious solution but people are too fixated on making housing above the ground.

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 the location of your colony/base to places where the Martian soil can be (at least relatively) easily worked. (If such places exist.) The there's the question of chemical reactions between the soil and the structures. (The chemistry of Martian soil being... well, it's being extremely charitable to call it extraordinarily poorly understood.) Etc... etc...

Re:Hobbit

[madsenj37]

It would also keep us from precious vitamin D. We are currently not meant to live in the dark, while evolution is slow and gradual. Are you proposing that they would evolve faster on Mars than we do here on Earth?

Re:Hobbit

[SuricouRaven]

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.

Re:Hobbit

[penguinoid]

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

[TWX]

I wonder if Mars has enough other minerals to make high-grade steel as easily as on Earth, once accounting for the natural differences between the planets that we've already discussed, or if that will be a problem.

Re:Hobbit

[AntiSol]

There are known caves on mars, see here (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.

Re:Hobbit

[bytesex]

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.

Re:Hobbit

[Black Parrot]

There's still a big killer lurking out in space that can't be easily avoided: radiation.

Except underground, which is the obvious solution but people are too fixated on making housing above the ground.

Except the article was talking about getting killed by the radiation exposure during the trip.

Presumably you aren't suggesting flying to Mars in a hobbit-hole. (Though if you could sneak a couple of tokes on Gandalf's pipe you might experience a good simulation.)

Re:Hobbit

[DrXym]

I imagine in much the same way as you dig in a field with sweet fuck all in it. You transport the tools to the site and start using them. Logistically hard when the site is on another planet, but hardly inconceivable and there are a number of ways the initial base might be prepared and improved on.

Re:Hobbit

[codeButcher]

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.)

Re:Hobbit

[Anonymous Coward]

Because when you're dealing with Space Nutters you throw out any kind of rational adult thought processes and substitute child-like logic.

Re:Hobbit

[murdocj]

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 take the most inhospitable spot on earth and colonize it.

I'm all for space exploration, but let's keep our heads on here.

Re:Hobbit

[SunTzuWarmaster]

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

[Rei]

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*. 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

Re:Hobbit

[Applehu Akbar]

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.

Re:Hobbit

[Applehu Akbar]

As soon as you stop calling yourself an expert on space development.

Re:Hobbit

[DrXym]

Your dumb arguments could apply right here on earth. After all, how can we possibly live under the water without a breathable atmosphere? Are we we expected to wearing a driving suit all the time? What about the burning the diesel? Blah blah blah. Oh wait someone invented a thing called a submarine and developed the means to heat, pressurize and provide oxygen and fresh water to people living inside of it.

There is nothing to "gloss over" since it is obviously hard. Perhaps it boggles your mind but people tasked to do it would break it down into small manageable problems and would come up with practical solutions and contingencies.

It is likely that any human landing to Mars would make extensive use of robotics, possibly with missions beforehand to prepare a site, drop supplies etc. It is likely it would require water but that a nuclear reactor could produce the O2, distilled water and power for life for humans, plants etc. It's likely that the persons would live in a pressurized structure which could be partially or fully buried to shield it from radiation. It is likely that suits would contain extra shielding and humans would only venture outside when the sun was low in the sky and that there would be covered trenches / walkways to travel between any structures.

Perhaps it's all mind boggling to you. I suggest other people see it as a hard but surmountable challenge.

Re:Hobbit

[invid]

It's actually more plausible to colonize the Moon than Mars. In both cases you're going to be living underground. In both cases you're extracting water and oxygen from local resources. In both cases you're going to be wearing a pressure suit on the surface. The advantage of the Moon is it only takes a couple weeks to get there instead of months. You can bring a heck of a lot more resources from Earth to your Moon base for the cost of bringing it to your Mars base. An emergency escape craft to bring you from the Moon to Earth wouldn't cost a trillion dollars. If you believe a Mars base would be easier to bring to self-sufficiency you are fooling yourselves.

Re:Hobbit

[wisnoskij]

Which is why it will never work. The kind of people who want to go into space, and the type of people people want to send into space are not the kind of people who are necessary for frontier living. The kind of people you would want to send to mars to develop a colony, are the sort of people you have always wanted to send to a desolate inhospitable location to develop a colony, the kind of people who say "Git'R Done" on a daily basis.

Re:Hobbit

[Talderas]

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.

Re:Hobbit

[Rei]

Oh wait someone invented a thing called a submarine and developed the means to heat, pressurize and provide oxygen and fresh water to people living inside of it.

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 dreamed of them being like underwater colonies and raising their own food and having their own internal industry to make all their replacement parts and so forth, just like people do today about Martian colonies. The reality turned out to be... well, less fantastical.

(I love how you can just gloss over something as complex as an O2-and-water-producing Mars-environment-operating nuclear reactor as if it's just some trivial thing to design, make, launch, and keep operating ;) )

Re:Hobbit

[Anonymous Coward]

It's even worse than that, have you noticed how quickly those types of posts get modded +5? A reasonable skeptical post is lucky to get +1, if it isn't immediately voted "Troll" by Space Nutter Central Command.

As soon as you express the slightest doubt about humanity's glorious future in space, 300 pound neckbeared shut-ins drop their Cheetos and immediately break into a massive sweat from the effort of clicking -1.

I can hear the wheezing and grunts of impotent rage through the screen.

The people least interested in actual life right here dream so much about a life on another planet... and get upset when I call their fantasies a religion.

Re:Hobbit

[Immerman]

>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 hydrocarbon fuel it consumes). Might make sense for building large cities once supporting infrastructure is in place. Less so for initial outposts.

Meanwhile
- We know the tunnels are almost certainly there.
- It shouldn't be difficult to locate lots of places where they're likely to exist
- We've already found several likely candidates for existing cave-ins (large pits with no sides visible from orbit, etc.)

So, which makes more sense? Sending a massive piece of earth-moving equipment, plus supporting power supply to Mars? Or sending a bunch of teeny flying probes (already in development) to scout likely areas to find caves and do preliminary exploration? (among other objectives) If suitable caves can be found, then colonists could move in almost immediately.

If suitable caves *can't* be found, then digging our own would probably be unattractive, at least in the early stages. You can't just dig large tunnels wherever you like and expect them to be stable - and proper surveying and stabilization without supporting industries would require time and a LOT of materials from Earth.

So in that case living quarters might be established in the perpetually shaded side of a east-west valley, thus eliminating all solar radiation (obviously any solar panels would have to be deployed at a distance). With a little luck we could even locate a suitable overhang under which the outpost could be built - the less sky you can see, the less radiation you are exposed to. And piling up a dozens-of-meters thick (Earth atmosphere equivalent radiation shielding) sand-and-rock "wall" to turn it into a cave would be a much easier and more leisurely project than building a similarly thick dome.

Or, if they decide to go ahead and bring a nuclear reactor, then building near a glacier or ice cap becomes much more appealing: waste heat could be used to melt caves into the ice with minimal additional equipment, with the resulting steam flowing into any cracks and refreezing to stabilize the excavation.

Re:Hobbit

[Cramer]

Of course, one must also get it safely to the surface of Mars.

Does no one remember Earth 2?

Re:Hobbit

[JeffAtl]

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.

Re:Hobbit

[Coren22]

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

[Rei]

"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 chains that interconnect with each other, using raw materials sourced from a massive variety of different types of geological formations the planet over. You basically have to reengineer all industry on Earth for the martian envirionment in a gigantic mass-minimization optimization problem. You can't just plop down a 3d printer and some generic "mining robot" that roams around your habitat like people envision in their sci-fi fantasies. Reality isn't so friendly.

Even worse, if you start launching stuff without doing all of that engineering work, you end up heading down a dead end. Let's say you make some smelter that takes limonite as its iron feedstock. But then as you start expanding your industrial base, you discover that you actually need a lot of sulfuric acid, and your iron production process should instead be designed to work around iron sulfate feedstocks with sulfuric acid produced as the much-needed byproduct, with a different type of smelter required. Well, guess what? That smelter that you spend $20 billion dollars engineering, building, and shipping to Mars is now scrap. It applies to almost everything. You made a pipeline out of polyethylene? Whoops, now you discover that you sometimes need to ship corrosive liquids and it really should have been made out of teflon, tough luck! Built some big piece of industrial equipment that relies on high-temperature inconel alloys? Whoops, you discover that you can't find a practical niobium deposit within driving distances, you have to reengineer your hardware for very different matierial properties or operating environments! Everything down to the tolerances on your bolts or the type of plastic you put on your greenhouses can be a costly screwup if you don't design your whole industrial layout in advance on a standardized set of hardware and know precisely what mineral deposits are where and how to get at them.

To all of the sci-fi buffs: It's not time to try to colonize Mars. It's time to learn about Mars, and to engineer here on Earth. And it's going to be in that phase for a long, long time. Want to go to Mars and hop around for a bit with a rock hammer like they did on the moon? Fine. But don't call it a colony.

Re:Hobbit

[DrXym]

I'm not "glossing over" anything. It's a hard problem. It doesn't make the mindless drivel of an AC correct however.

Re:Hobbit

[Coren22]

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.

Re:Hobbit

[gstoddart]

Except underground, which is the obvious solution but people are too fixated on making housing above the ground.

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 enough of them.

So, while I applaud looking into what we need to do, and exploring what works ... I'm still convinced that, in particular, Mars One is nothing but a PR stunt and have absolutely not come anywhere near the point of actually being able to overcome the hurdles they need to.

But that first ship of people to land there is going to need to be up and running within a few days, not months or weeks. Because they'll be in an incredibly hostile environment with nobody around to help them.

Re:Hobbit

[Punchcardz]

I've always wanted to take a derelict submarine, ship it to Barstow, California and sell 1-year+ stays to these folks and see how it affects their opinion on colonization. All the "we must escape the cradle" arguments for colonization ignore the fact that it is really, REALLY hard to imagine a catastrophe that will render Earth as inhospitable as Mars or the Moon. As bad as the K-T extinction event was, Earth had plenty of flora and even megafauna that survived. Mars? Maybe can support some microbial life. Maybe. If you can build a hermetically sealed, relatively self-sustaining habitat, why not plop them all over Antarctica, the Gobi or even the continental shelves?

Re:Hobbit

[DerekLyons]

Presuming there are lava tubes in useful locations... and that they're sufficiently structurally sound... and that you don't need to do considerable earth moving or construction to gain and maintain useful access... Etc... etc...

Lava tubes make for a great buzzword, but there's still many complicated practical considerations.

Re:Hobbit

[Rei]

Well, certainly more realistic than living on the surface. And probably easier to set up than a Mars habitat - terrain is irrelevant and your entry is so much easier - plus, even normal Earth air is a lifting gas on Venus. And it'd be no less self-sustaining (that is, to say, "not very" ;) ).

There's no need to send people offworld to do science, whether to Venus or Mars. But while there's no need for any kind of "facility" at all, manned or otherwise, for robotic equipment on Mars, the concept of some sort of floating "facility" on Venus is pretty important. Any sort of craft designed to tolerate Venus's surface environment is going to make a terrible analysis lab or sample return vehicle. I mean, even solar panels would have to be heavily shielded on a sampling run to not be destroyed; there's very little that you can have exposed that can tolerate that environment. Sampling and analysis or return on Venus is best done in two stages: 1) Buoyant craft that repeatedly dive and rise the atmosphere like submarines and take samples on the surface, and 2) a floating platform containing any analysis equipment or return hardware, high gain communication with Earth, and solar panels to recharge the batteries of the sampling craft while samples are being offloaded.

Venus's surface is really unusual and it'd be neat to know more about what's there. I'm still not big on the concept that we need humans there to do it, but at least a floating platform of some kind would be important. The only advantages I could see for having humans would be to cut the communications latency with the samplers to allow for smarter sampling decisions without requiring them to wait in the harsh environment for round-trip communications on Earth, the ability to repair samplers, and perhaps mildly better local analysis of samples and/or decisions about what to bring back. Hard to justify the added price tag, though.

Re:Hobbit

[bluegutang]

You only need to print one factory factory factory and take it from there.

FTFY

Re:Hobbit

[bzipitidoo]

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 not have, is hostile natives. The absence of that petty little problem is no compensation for the huge problems we would have to solve to build a sustainable colony on Mars. We aren't capable of doing it now. That list of obstacles to setting up a steel foundry isn't even among the main problems. Can we establish an ecology? What about ionizing radiation, how do we handle that?

It's possible we may conclude that even if we can do it, Mars isn't worth inhabiting. Really, why inhabit Mars? By the time we can do it, we could probably also inhabit space for indefinite lengths of time, and if we can do that, why not head out of the solar system? Seems likely there will be many planets that are much better than Mars. Mars then is mostly an experiment, a trial. Where is humanity going? Are we headed towards a blissful future of peace, all our critical problems solved? If yes, how long can it last, millions of years? We may need 100,000 years to send a colony ship to another solar system. We have no civilization that has come anywhere close to lasting such an enormous length of time. But we can dream.

Re:Hobbit

[Spy Handler]

It would also keep us from precious vitamin D. We are currently not meant to live in the dark, while evolution is slow and gradual. Are you proposing that they would evolve faster on Mars than we do here on Earth?

Light bulbs, and vitamin D

Re:Hobbit

[Spy Handler]

So you scout ahead of time instead of going there blind. And if you find one from a rover rolling on the surface, it obviously does not need considerable earth moving equipment to gain access. And the low gravity on Mars means structural strength is most likely a non-issue, since lava tubes are already plenty strong on earth.

Re:Hobbit

[Spy Handler]

I would agree that a moon base is more plausible than a Mars base. However, both endeavors are gonna cost a shit ton of money anyways, so why not go for the cool option that offers more future returns?

Also an escape craft to bring you back to Earth is not an issue since people are signing up for a one-way trip. Not necessarily talking about the Mars One thing here, which seems to me like a scam to collect "registration fees" from gullible people. But generally speaking I think a NASA or ESA mission to Mars should be a one-way trip as well. And as we found out recently, there is no shortage of volunteers.

Re:Hobbit

[Spy Handler]

How about setting up an earth-made prefab hab inside a Martian cave/lava tube? Then you get the radiation shielding benefits without having to launch or move any regolith.

Re:Hobbit

[itzly]

And what would be the benefit over staying in a lava tube on earth ?

Re:Hobbit

[MarkvW]

I'd think bigger. Remotely build a rover factory on Mars that can manufacture and fuel rovers there.

Re:Hobbit

[Joey Vegetables]

How hard can ore processing be? We already have word processors. Just fork one and make whatever minor mods are necessary to process ores instead.

Re:Hobbit

[DerekLyons]

And if you find one from a rover rolling on the surface, it obviously does not need considerable earth moving equipment to gain access.

The mind boggles that anyone with an IQ over room temperature can make such a statement. Have you ever actually been out of your parent's basement and looked at geological formations in the real world?
 

And the low gravity on Mars means structural strength is most likely a non-issue, since lava tubes are already plenty strong on earth.

Yeah - that would be why one of the main methods of locating lava tubes in aerial or orbital photography (on the Earth, Moon, and Mars) is to look for collapsed tubes and collapsed segments (called "skylights").

Re:Hobbit

[Toshito]

And then you're exposed to Radon. Not much better.

Re:Hobbit

[MarkvW]

It's all about building seeds--seeds that can grow into a powered factory, for example. As our technology gets better, seed varieties will vary from ultra-gigantic to ultra small.

Re:Hobbit

[tnk1]

It may be easier, but actually understanding the geology of Mars under the surface is something that you need to be able to do. What is the composition of the layers you are digging into? How far down do you dig to find a layer that is easy enough to work, but able to support itself?

And of course, is there anything like ground water? Mars is a desert on the surface, but might well have ground water underneath at some level.

There are things we can use like ground penetrating radar from satellites to try and get answers to those questions, but it is far easier to do that sort of survey work on Earth than it would be on Mars. And you'd have far better results with a dedicated human or robotic survey mission to the surface.

Re:Hobbit

[DrXym]

1) Because Anonymous Coward is a moniker on Slashdot that anybody can use 2) this moniker is mine and has been mine for the ~14 years I've used it here. Real name or not, I still have a history of posts that are distinct from other people's posts, a consistency to comments and a reputation to uphold.

Re:Hobbit

[eurotrash88]

Perhaps it's all mind boggling to you. I suggest other people see it as a hard but surmountable challenge.

I think the real question is WHY.

There were compelling reasons to build aqua-lungs and submarines. There are plenty of other hard but surmountable challenges out there which have actual benefits to humanity.

Re:Hobbit

[tnk1]

The environment is barren and the atmosphere is much too thin and lacking in oxygen to support unsuited humans. I don't know if it is actively poisonous if you were in a cavern with an artificial atmosphere, although there are going to certainly be places that are more toxic than others, just like on Earth.

However, with the right equipment, water is water and oxygen is oxygen. You should be able to produce those from what is on Mars, but you're right, there is a certain amount of equipment that would need to get there. Presumably, at least some of the initial work of preparing the habitat would be done by programming or remote control via pre-staged equipment.

It is certainly possible to colonize Mars, the question is, is it worth the large expense? That's harder to say.

Re:Hobbit

[tnk1]

There's a shitload of iron on Mars. It's just that it's all attached to those pesky oxygen atoms.

That said, while I agree that some people severely underestimate the amount of effort to set up full-on industrial activities on Mars, we do have enough understanding of how things work to make it happen. We wouldn't be building things straight up from the Stone Age.

The trick is that the initial settlement would be very tenuous. You would have to ship the exact amount of what you need to start off a process, and proceed down that path with little possibility of variance from your plan. You would only have x amount of tools and n amount of materials to work with. If you can get the next stage set up, then there is probably another milestone you have to reach, which also is very constrained in what you need to do.

Chances are decent you would fail and with Mars, that failure costs billions of dollars and more importantly, dead astronauts/colonists. However, strictly speaking, we're at the earliest point where we could give it a "go". It's just that the probabilities are not really on our side yet.

Devising the reduced gravity methods of certain processes has to be done, but as long as such things are actually possible, they can and will be done. It's just a matter of priority and time.

Re:Hobbit

[tnk1]

I don't disagree that the problems are hard, but I think reality will show people where they need to be. No one is going to spend tens of billion dollars on a trip to Mars unless they really think it can be done and have something to back that up.

I think it is possible to set up a colony now, it is just extremely likely to fail with the shoestring funds and priority we're allocating to it. I think that any one of a million things can go wrong that would kill every last person who tried to do it. So yeah, Mars One = space suicide pact. That is, if it even gets more than a foot off the ground.

What I don't think is that we lack the suitable technological level or resources to do it. We don't need to have another technological revolution to make the trip possible, we just have to devote the time and resources to devising the solutions. The problem in that case is less of possibility and more of priority. If we made this our top priority, I am 99% certain we could have a successful colony on Mars in short order, but no one is going to make that our #1 priority. So, now we figure out what we can do with the limited resources we've allocated the project.

I'm okay with the sci-fi people being optimistic. Optimistic people make difficult things happen in the face of adversity. Realism takes care of itself.

Re:Hobbit

[Your.Master]

It is just a matter of engineering*. It's not like we need fundamental new science. Literally everything you said is an engineering problem.

It's just a whole fuckload of engineering.

Here's one way it might go down.

1. Self-sustaining Martian robot "colony". Note we don't have one on Earth, but to be fair we don't need one on Earth nearly so much. This is conceivably something that could be useful even on Earth in extreme environments, or in Earth orbit, so we can get some practice, then adapt for Mars. Again, this glosses over a lot.
2. The robots can now attempt to create a liveable ecosphere. We could even send ahead some plants and animals that nobody would miss to prove the concept.
3. Then the humans come.

Does that sound conservative to you? Because that's how the real space program happened, the one that is often lauded as going so fast compared to now. First we sent machines which had a useful life in space much longer than any human has ever lived in space (thus, self-sustaining). Then came the dog, the monkeys, and finally humans. We skipped the dogs and monkeys on the moon at great risk, but we had already proven:

1. Launch from a gravity well
2. Continuous space habitation on similar timescales to the moon mission

So we had good reason to think we could skip that step. We should work ourselves up to longer-term habitation similarly. The ISS is a good step for long-term habitation with resupply, but we need something with no resupply.

The class of problems that could be solved by humans using only local materials, but would leave us totally fucked with only machines, is pretty small. I can see the argument about useful science, but we're talking fatal emergencies.

* Mayyyyyybe psychology or economics or some soft sciences like that.

Re:Hobbit

[Reziac]

Canyons get started by water, but it doesn't take much -- just enough of a ditch to generate a bit of wind. Windblown sand does the major carving after that.

Re:Hobbit

[RockDoctor]

it obviously does not need considerable earth moving equipment to gain access.

It's not the gaining access that's the problem. It's the surviving the deceleration at the bottom, and getting out again.

What about the local magnetospheres

[Anonymous Coward]

Mars has a number of places, where the magnetic field is strong and hundreds of km high. Is it enough? And if not, is not is, in effect, not about the lack of magnetosphere, but about the lack of atmosphere dense enough, which does not stop most of the non-charged particles?

They're missing the point...

[narf0708]

The point of a permanent Mars settlement is the fact that some of us would rather die on Mars. I don't understand why people are finding any problems with that.

Re:They're missing the point...

[Anonymous Coward]

It's a problem when it's "All die" rather than "Some die"

Re:They're missing the point...

[TWX]

I wouldn't go to another place to live unless the odds were better than even that I could live my natural lifespan if I'm careful. I don't care if that's across town or across the Solar System. I would not go to Mars without at least a decent chance that a colony could survive. After all, going without that expectation is literally accomplishing nothing.

Re:They're missing the point...

[Immerman]

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...

[Neil Boekend]

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...

[jklovanc]

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.

Re:They're missing the point...

[SuricouRaven]

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.

Re:They're missing the point...

[jklovanc]

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.

Re:They're missing the point...

[kuzb]

There isn't really a need to worry about that. Mars One won't even make it off the ground, much less Mars.

Re:They're missing the point...

[Anonymous Coward]

We are talking billions of dollars that have much better uses here on Earth.

Yeah, like getting misused by corrupt government agencies instead of spending it on the important stuff

Re:They're missing the point...

[dave420]

Score: +Sandwich, Nonsense.

Re:They're missing the point...

[allcoolnameswheretak]

Valar morghulis.

Re:They're missing the point...

[Kjella]

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 and unthankful task. Remember that you're a million miles away from any fans or fame, no vacations or time off and it's unlikely any amount of money will get you fresh bacon and eggs.

And as for changing the world, they won't send you up there just to be a warm body. If you can change the world up there, you can probably change the world down here too. There's thousands of people who can say they contributed to the Apollo program, even though they never went to the moon.

Re:They're missing the point...

[Antique Geekmeister]

> 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 benefits include the multiplication of our space capacity, enough to support zero-gee crystal and semiconductor manufacture, zero-gee electrophoresis that multiplies the sensitivity of certain types of chemical analysis, solar power from space based solar mirrors, and the migration of the most dangerous biological and nuclear research to orbital or lunar bases instead of Earth based bases.

Mars 1 seems a poorly selected political target for space development, because the obstacles are so very large they may absorb all the resources that could more quickly and effectively build a real space infrastructure. But watch, in the mantime, while many proponents of real space flight and technology manage to squeeze some funding out of the overall Mars 1 project.

Re:They're missing the point...

[Rob Riggs]

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?"

Re:They're missing the point...

[MMC Monster]

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.

Re:They're missing the point...

[JaredOfEuropa]

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 escape your fellow colonists, and probably limited opportunity to escape into work (as people in such conditions often do). Big Brother in Hell. Probably exiting for the first month, still pretty good a few months in, but after a year (after you're still around) it's going to suck.

Re:They're missing the point...

[delt0r]

That fine. As long as your the one *paying* for the funeral.

Re:They're missing the point...

[delt0r]

Go and ask people who Neil Armstrong is. The under 20s have no idea who he is. Nor do the care after you tell them. If all you want is a memory (your dead so not sure why you give a fuck), your probably better off going insane and blowing shit up.

Re:They're missing the point...

[delt0r]

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.

Re:They're missing the point...

[Smauler]

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.

Re:They're missing the point...

[radams217]

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?

A few trillion dollars could be invested here on infrastructure, wildlife clean up, schools, etc. We have one earth and we are doing a terrible job of taking care of it, especially for how rare it is in the universe. I don't understand this need to be independent of earth. I know people who are 40 years old that still live with their parents. Let's focus on that.

Re:They're missing the point...

[Translation Error]

Either way, you end up dead - but for a lot of people, option two looks more appealing.

Until they try it. (Though a small number will actually take to it.)

Re:They're missing the point...

[Coren22]

Is the taxpayer paying for Mars One?

Re:They're missing the point...

[jklovanc]

Which is what people in my youth said about the Moon landing and, frankly, has been a constant refrain against all space flight.

There are a few differences between Apollo and a Mars base;
1. They came back from the moon
2. There was no long term commitment to re-supply as would be in the Mars mission.
3. We didn't have a space station on which to do research.

All the R&D you talk about can be done in earth or moon orbit which is at least an order of magnitude less expensive than putting people on Mars.

Re:They're missing the point...

[MooseTick]

"You pioneer a new way of life, and there's a good chance of your name going down in history books."

Unless you're first, you're last. Twelve people have walked on the moon. How many can you name?

Re:They're missing the point...

[delt0r]

Is Mars one going to mars?

Re:They're missing the point...

[RockDoctor]

Achilles made that argument in the Iliad.

When Odysseus met his ghost in Hades later, Achilles the Dead thought that Achilles the Living had been a dickhead for thinking that.

Radiation not a problem, an opportunity

[SuperKendall]

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.

Re:Radiation not a problem, an opportunity

[TWX]

It's hard to build in canyons and it's hard to navigate them. I expect that the earliest colonies will be built into the sides of mesas, such that the plains on which the mesas sit can be used.

Re:Radiation not a problem, an opportunity

[Rei]

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.

Re:Radiation not a problem, an opportunity

[Hadlock]

Mars' gravity is well less than half of Earth's gravity. It's not a lot larger than the Moon. To put the same stress on your skeleton on Mars that an obese person does to their own in Earth gravity, you'd need to add about 250 to 350 pounds of radiation shielding.

Re:go outside

[Anonymous Coward]

Step 1: Get your ass to Mars.
Step 2: Go outside without a helmet or respirator, and without turning on the giant underground alien O2 generator.
Step 3: Asphyxiate very quickly. EYAH AH AGH AAHH!

p.s. If I'm not me, then who the hell am I? --Total Recall
I know who I am! I'm the dude playin' a dude, disguised as another dude! --Tropic Thunder

Terraforming potential?

[willworkforbeer]

Without a planetary magnetic field to shield it from lethal radiation, and without the ability to retain a useful planetary atmosphere, how exactly would we terraform Mars?

Re:Terraforming potential?

[Immerman]

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.

Re:Terraforming potential?

[Rob Bos]

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?

[jklovanc]

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.

Re:Terraforming potential?

[Rei]

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.

Re:Terraforming potential?

[Immerman]

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.

Re:Terraforming potential?

[Immerman]

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 wouldn't be available to provide buoyancy to the funnel. Basically that "negligible drag" would be the only thing providing a supporting force to the funnel. Though of course there's no reason you couldn't have it supported by hot air or hydrogen balloons or something.

I wonder though what might happen if you directed the CO2 to Venus's L4 or L5 points? Could you build up sufficient mass to create a stable bubble of CO2, perhaps with the aid of a cluster of asteroids to provide an anchor mass? That might make for a very interesting space habitat.

Re:Terraforming potential?

[Immerman]

True, depending on the kind of radiation we're talking about. Relatively low-energy charged particles are deflected by the Earth's magnetic field, while rarer high-energy charged particles can still punch through, and neutron radiation, as well as gamma rays and other EM radiation, are completely unaffected.

The radiation that does get through however, is pretty much completely stopped by the atmosphere, which provides radiation shielding roughly equivalent to about 4m of solid rock - extremely effective especially against highly interacting charged particles. The problem is that while the radiation would be stopped, in the process the atmosphere, particularly the upper atmosphere, gets heated (aka accelerated) and gradually stripped away from the planet. If we lost our magnetic field today, life on Earth would continue largely unaffected in the short term (except for secondary effects from lighting by continuous global auroras), but our atmosphere would be gradually stripped away over the subsequent millenia until the radiation could eventually reach the surface.

Re:Terraforming potential?

[Rei]

. 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

Yes, the velocity would need to be tens of kilometers per second. But really, what's the limiting factor here? Certainly not skin drag, when you're talking something on the necessary scale here. Viscosity losses, radiating the energy away to space as heat? The energy can't effectively radiate away as heat, that's why the funnel is there, to reflect IR while transmitting visible light from the sun. There's not many options for the gas to lose energy except to accelerate.

Basically that "negligible drag" would be the only thing providing a supporting force to the funnel.

Negligible from a systems perspective. But from the perspective of the funnel, it's tremendous force. The mass of the funnel is insignificant compared to the mass of the rising gas when you're talking about a megastructure.

I wonder though what might happen if you directed the CO2 to Venus's L4 or L5 points? Could you build up sufficient mass to create a stable bubble of CO2

That would be.... unusual. What would you call that, a "Gas Dwarf"? I really have no clue how much you could have persist stably there, but I'd be really curious to know. It'd be particularly strange if you could make it out of a combination of gasses that are breathable - aka, limiting the CO2 levels, O2 from CO2, and any mix of Venusian/Jovian N2, Ar, and He as buffer gasses as needed. If the water vapor levels were low then there would be little in terms of cloud cover to reflect light. Earth's atmosphere absorbs about 1/3rd of the sun's energy, so with two passes through it'd absorb about half; at Venus's distance it'd probably be a pretty comfortable temperature. Gravity would be tiny. Obviously not long-term stable due to the solar wind, and high radiation, unless you artificially create a miniature magnetosphere. But in the short term...?

That would be so weird to be floating "midair" in a temperate breathable environment with no land anywhere.

Re:Terraforming potential?

[painandgreed]

Cool idea, but I suspect it's not practical.

Interesting idea, but perhaps relatively practical. Once I did the math for moving Haley Comet sized objects from the near Oort cloud to Mars to form an atmosphere (after taking into account atmosphere and ice already present on Mars) and the needed energy to do so on a scale of decades was measured in total daily energy output of the sun (~3 IIRC) and that was using assumptions that made it easier to do so. I'll have to sit down and do the math for moving it from closer sources some day and see how it compares.

Re:Terraforming potential?

[Immerman]

Not tens of km per second, hundreds. Escaping Venus takes 10.4 km/s. Getting to Mars would take an additional 358km/s, for a total of 368km/s. Assuming that's the most probable speed of the molecules leaving the top of the funnel in a thermal distribution, that translates to a temperature of 358,000,000K*. Could be some minor issues there...

*(according to the calculator near the bottom of this page: http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.g...)

Weird indeed. I flashed to Niven's Smoke Ring series a soon as I thought of it.

Re:Terraforming potential?

[Immerman]

Well, do consider that getting an object from an infinite distance from the sun into a shared orbit with Mars takes a bit less energy per kg than between the orbits of Mars and Venus (291 versus 322 MJ/kg). If you're sufficiently patient, distance is never an issue - specific orbital energy on the other hand can't be cheated. Well, you can steal momentum from the planets (aka gravitational slingshots / the Interplanetary Transport Network), but you probably want to think carefully before doing that with planetary-scale masses.

But still - I think any project that measures it's energy requirements in terms of the total output of the sun should probably be considered impractical... Even if steady-state requirements are only a substantial fraction of a percent. By the time such things become feasible, we probably won't be recognizably human anymore.

Re:Terraforming potential?

[Rei]

First off, you're misusing temperature. You don't call it heat if all of the particles are moving in the same direction and unionized, you just call it "wind". It only becomes heat if that windstream suddenly slams into a non-moving solid surface and becomes instantly thermalized (but of course even then that would be a very short-lived event as it would correspond with a pressure rise and the deflection of the stream behind the high-pressure zone). Additionally, nor would that be the windspeed touching the surface as, obviously, wind forms boundary layers.

Secondly, hundreds of km/s from Venus escape to Mars intercept? That doesn't at all correspond to any delta-V chart I've ever seen.

Re:Terraforming potential?

[Immerman]

Careful yourself - heat and temperature are two completely different concepts related by a material-specific conversion function.

But yes, you are right that temperature and speed are rarely used interchangeably outside particle physics - it is quite likely you could substantially avoid thermalization of the "wind", however any portion that *was* thermalized, say by interaction with the surface of the funnel, would thermalize to an extremely high temperature. Though I suppose in that case we should probably be looking at the RMS speed, rather than the most probable, which would lower the temperature a bit

As for speeds, I'm just going from the specific orbital energies, perhaps there's other tricks that can be played - I'll freely admit that I always seem to have trouble translating between delta-V and delta-E in an orbital context. But to go from Venus's orbit to Mars's orbit you still need to add 322MJ/kg - more than to escape the sun entirely from Mars's orbit. And 322MJ/kg of kinetic energy would translate via E=1/2*m*v^2 to... 25.4 km/s....

Okay, it would seem I've got a math error somewhere... Ah, right, flipped an exponent there. 6x the energy translates to 2.45x the velocity, not 36x. Sorry about that.

So that would make the required departure velocity only 27.4 km/s, and the associated thermalization temperature only about 1,340,000K...

Except wait - we've got a phase change from gas to plasma in there, which almost certainly breaks their calculations badly. At any rate you're going to have a steady flow of hot plasma against the surfaces of your funnel - that's going to add some serious material science challenges (or engineering, if you go for magnetic shielding)

Re:Terraforming potential?

[painandgreed]

True about the amount of energy needed that can't be cheated. It puts thing like this into perspective. I admit, I used a timeline of a decade to get them into the inner solar system, and probably should have used a timeline more along the lines of a century. Space is big.

Re:Terraforming potential?

[pmikell]

But we'd need a secure password for access points through the membrane. I recommend 12345.

Re:Terraforming potential?

[Rei]

Except wait - we've got a phase change from gas to plasma in there, which almost certainly breaks their calculations badly.

Again, no, you don't. All of the particles are moving in the same direction. They're not hot. They're not slamming into each other and kicking electrons off.

Do you think if you had a spacecraft moving at 25.4 kilometers per second it would be plasma too?

Re:Terraforming potential?

[Immerman]

As soon as it touches something NOT moving 25.4km/s? Probably. Or if it were to hit a gas, the gas would be plasma.

In this case, you've got gas moving at 27.4km/s across a stationary funnel surface - you're going to get a lot of thermalization in the boundary region, and I would bet on plasma formation. Obviously that's not particularly relevant to the bulk of the fast-moving gas, but it's *very* relevant to the funnel.

Re:Terraforming potential?

[Rei]

But that's the point. If it slams into an immobile object of course. But we're not talking about anything slamming into an immobile object. From the perspective of a molecule in the gas stream, it's going about the same speed as its neighbors. It's quite cool.

As for the boundary region, even at the "pinched" funnel outlet one could be talking dozens of kilometers here. A dozen kilometers between going from zero velocity and 25 kilometers per second is roughly the same as a dozen meters between going from zero velocity and 25 meters per second. Aka, a virtually insignificant gradient.

Re:Terraforming potential?

[Immerman]

But the gradient won't be across a dozen kilometers - in fact if it were then the vast majority of the vented CO2 would be lost to interplanetary space rather than getting anywhere close to Mars. To be effective this system would have to be designed to resist a laminar flow distribution, so that virtually all the gas leaves the funnel at *exactly* the same speed. Any molecule moving at a speed off by even 0.001% will never reach Mars. We're trying to throw a dart at a bullseye moving at 24.1 km/s, hundreds of millions of miles away, with zero possibility of fine-tuning the path after launch.

As a matter of fact, even the initial thermalized lateral motion of the gas molecules would pretty much render it impossible to hit Mars - We're talking months to years of transition time, even a few dozen m/s of lateral motion will cause the gas cloud to expand so rapidly that I doubt more than a tiny fraction of a percent would even make it to Mars's Hill's sphere, much less the planet itself. You would have to find a way to completely eliminate all thermalized motion, essentially creating a giant highly collimated particle accelerator with negligible inter-molecular interactions rather than an air gun.

Re:Mars One Plan

[chipschap]

as well as carbon dioxide produced by the initial four-member crew

Oh no! We're going to cause global warming on Mars now!

Stop giving Mars One press

[Anonymous Coward]

Mars One is a scam.
http://www.iflscience.com/spac...

Another Significant Hazard: Toxic Mars

[anzha]

perchlorates. Mars seems to be chalk full of them. There are some microbial lifeforms which are able to metabolize them, but we can't. In fact, their pretty bad for us. For large values of bad.

Re:Another Significant Hazard: Toxic Mars

[Rob Bos]

(chock full)

Re:Another Significant Hazard: Toxic Mars

[michelcolman]

Why don't we simply send those microbes over there already? We've got plenty of candidate lifeforms that "might" be able to survive on Mars. Just send samples of a bunch of those on a next rover mission to be scattered over some area, then see if any of them stick. Who knows, one of them might evolve into something that actually thrives on Martian soil and colonizes much of the planet. Let nature take care of the rest. Some people may not like the idea of "spoiling" the entire planet by importing life from earth (and possibly rendering the later discovery of indigenous life impossible), but if we can introduce life forms that reproduce exponentially, detoxify the soil and produce useful gases like oxygen, it will certainly make it (slightly) easier to colonize the planet once we're finally ready. Of course we won't be able to turn the planet into a giant forest, but it would be better than nothing. And we'd learn a hell of a lot about the evolution of life.

Also, if any catastrophic event happens here on earth, maybe something might come from those bacteria on Mars so life can go on. Maybe this already happened once on a different planet...

Re:Another Significant Hazard: Toxic Mars

[anzha]

never post when crazy tired. thank you for the correction.

Fuck Mars

[Anonymous Coward]

We haven't even managed to put a base on the moon, but for some reason we think that we can put one on Mars? Sheer idiocy.

Re:Fuck Mars

[michelcolman]

I've always been wondering about that. Why don't we make a moon base first? See how that works out? It certainly seems simpler than going all the way to Mars, you can even let people come back to earth. Or does the tiny bit of atmosphere on Mars make it so much easier to colonize?

Obvious first step

[penguinoid]

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.

Re:Obvious first step

[renergy]

"A new life awaits you in the off-world colonies! A chance to begin again in a golden land of opportunity and adventure!" :)

Re:Obvious first step

[michelcolman]

They'd better not send American citizens over there, because they'll actually have to keep paying taxes on anything they earn on Mars.

Re:Obvious first step

[PrimaryConsult]

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

[bkmoore]

In fact it's cold as hell
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?

[Marrow]

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

Re:Mars One Plan

[MobSwatter]

Oh no! We're going to cause global warming on Mars now!

Fat chance on that, this country hasn't done anything really the right way since they whacked JFK and killed his original space program. Furthermore I highly doubt that the Mars gig is actually going to happen, aerospace is being privatized and this means corporations cutting corners, and that trip I sure as shit wouldn't want to buy a ticket for nor would I get on a craft at gunpoint. After they have actually reliably created airplane style access to space to reliably test zero G propulsion systems and have a working solution, then space travel might be within reach, the reality is things have only gotten worse for that. I'd wager the Russky's will do it first, the world will have to get past that thing of wanting to use the He3 on the moon for nukes rather than zero G propulsion systems.

Dirt Berm

[Aereus]

How much dirt would be required to shield from all/most of the radiation? Yes, manual labor requires more oxygen, but worst-case scenario, they use shovels and pile dirt on an aluminum dome or such for some initial shielding?

Water as insulation?

[Anonymous Coward]

Why not use water as insulation against radiation as there is plenty of it in Mars soil and the structures that can be made watertight, airtight and flexible at the same time do not add weight substantially.

Voluntarily

[h33t l4x0r]

At a feast for your water brothers, who will grok you in fullness as you go on to become an old one.

The plan

[kuzb]

Mars One's plan is to continue to siphon money until everyone else figures out it's a scam.

Re:The plan

[93 Escort Wagon]

Exactly. Why are we still wasting time discussing this scheme?

Robert Heinlen

[randalware]

Stupidity is a death sentence.

Heavy vs. light?

[Obfuscant]

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.

Re:Heavy vs. light?

[Orange Crush]

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 sorts of tricky engineering challenges. It's not unsolveable (SpaceX thinks they can do it), but it's not easy.

Re:Heavy vs. light?

[Applehu Akbar]

We have already done aerobraking on Mars, both for orbiters and landers.

Re:Heavy vs. light?

[david_thornley]

And it doesn't work so well. In order to drop packages on the surface recently, we've either wrapped them really well in bubble wrap or had ingenious rockets provide some slowing.

Re:Heavy vs. light?

[strikethree]

Being a high school dropout, I have to ask: Do Gallileo's findings take into account masses of vastly different sizes?

The reason I ask is this: All masses exert gravity, yes? So say a planet exerts an acceleration of 8m/s squared. The prevailing theory is that ALL objects, regardless of mass fall at the same speed... yes?

What if one of the objects is a bowling ball and the other is an asteroid the size of a mountain... wouldn't the asteroid fall faster? Before you answer no, I would need an explanation of why the acceleration of gravity of the bowling itself and the asteroid itself is not added to the acceleration of gravity of the planet itself...

Just pulling random numbers that are likely orders of magnitude off but are sufficient to demonstrate my question: planet 8m/s squared, asteroid .00008ms squared, bowling ball, .000000008m/s squared of acceleration. To the human eye, there would be no difference in speed over a 100 mile fall, but when measuring to the picosecond, wouldn't there be a difference in time between the bowling ball and the asteroid hitting the surface due to their own masses exerting gravitic pull?

Again, a mountain sized asteroid has outrageously less mass than a planet so for most purposes, there is no reason to to account for its mass... but for scientific purposes and pedantry, wouldn't we need to account for it?

TFA has no clue about orbital mechanics

[nomaddamon]

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 :)

Re:TFA has no clue about orbital mechanics

[nomaddamon]

F=G(M1*M2/r^2)

a = F / m therefore
a =G (m1 * m2 / r ^ 2) / m1 therefore
a =G (m2 / r ^ 2)
and v1 = v0 + a * t therefore there is no relation between v1 and m1
QFT

How to ALMOST die on Mars (multiple times)

[Meneth]

The Martian, by Andrew Weir.

Re:How to ALMOST die on Mars (multiple times)

[Erbo]

Mark Watney: Stranded on Mars, with nothing but disco.

Mars One == B Ark

[Irate Engineer]

Mars One is a bunch of useless bloody loonies!

Re:Mars One Plan

[Dunbal]

People are talking about Mars One as if it was real! Even Star Citizen is more real than Mars One.

Re:Mars One Plan

[murdocj]

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?

Re:Mars One Plan

[michelcolman]

I like the way they start out by saying how hard it would be to land on Mars. You mean nobody has thought of that yet? Quick, somebody call Elon Musk and warn him before he sends over a rocket full of people with no way of landing there!

Also, they actually say they might have problems with plants producing too much oxygen. OK, hang on a minute there... Too much oxygen? On Mars? Somehow I don't think that will be such a major problem. Especially when combined with that other problem of not being able to make enough CO2...

I'm not saying it's going to be a picknick. It will be a hell of a challenge to just grow food and get breathable air. It just seems funny how the article emphasizes non-issues while disregarding much bigger problems.

Oh, and we shouldn't send over women because women live longer and are therefore more likely to develop cancer! Right, pick people with the shortest possible lifespan to maximize their... errr... oh, wait...

buffering...buffering...

[paiute]

I don't know how they will die on Mars, but we will be watching them with a 4 to 24 minute time delay.

"Analysis"

[Dereck1701]

"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 plenty of challenges that could end a Mars colony, but I don't think that analysis was all that reliable in identifying them.

Cool Zombie Science Recipies

[TheRealHocusLocus]

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
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'.

For cookies, spray flavored coating over a nutritionally inert Styrofoam shapes and market them as "heart healthy".

Re:Cool Zombie Science Recipies

[Areyoukiddingme]

SERVING
Throw out all that shit. Engage the collective human mind in sitcoms and 'reality' shows.

Three anonymous coward responses, and not one of them actually read your post.

Reading comprehension has gone out of style...

Re:Cool Zombie Science Recipies

[TheRealHocusLocus]

Wow, the delusion that somehow by clinging to space fantasies you're rescuing the species... Wow. If anyone ever needs evidence how lunatic the space fringe is...
Evolution is still happening. There won't be a human species in a million years one way or another.
Sending a few test pilots to die on a rusty empty ball won't change anything to that.
You self-important schizophrenic lunatic.

Let's take this outside.
Meet me at the YouTube comments section of 'Bright Giant Love Ball' where I'll kick your ass.

Re:CO2 from Astronauts?

[wisnoskij]

Presumably, the atmosphere's CO2 is far too concentrated and lased with deadly toxins.

Re: Mars One Plan

[O('_')O_Bush]

Well, not YOUR actions. YOUR actions kill kittens.

Re:Mars One Plan

[morgauxo]

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.

1st Total Recall movie terraformed Mars with CO2

[peter303]

Mars is below water freezing point most of the time. But a substantial greenhouse gas atmosphere could change that.

drones are planned in 2020s missions

[peter303]

Must be specially designed for thin air

Mars sent us our ancestors 3B years ago

[peter303]

mars likely geologically stablized hundreds of millions of years before Earth. Life may have evolved there first, then "infected" Earth by meteors.

Those RC devices

[publiclurker]

can do a lot more useful science than sticking a human up there for little more than a photo-op

Re:Those RC devices

[morgauxo]

We have all sorts of spinoff technologies from the manned space program. It was hardly useless.

What scientifically USEFULL information are those robots providing? If nobody is going there we aren't actually USING that information are we?

Don't get me wrong.. I do value information simply for the sake of knowing about the universe we live in. I don't want to see the robotic progams ended completely. We should always be sending a probe or two out beyond the reaches of our farthest manned program. Keep the discoveries coming!

But.. how many more reports of 'Amazing new evidence found that Mars was once warmer and wetter' do we really need? When do we get someone up there with a shovel to look beneath the sun-sterilized surface? When do we get actual permanent habitats anywhere outside of Earth?

We don't even seem to be even working towards this kind of goal anymore. How about some balance between information for the sake of enlightenment vs hard tangible, practical goals?

Look how many years we supported the ISS before anyone even tried to grow a plant in it? WTF? Isn't that the kind of resarch it was supposed to be for?

Re:Those RC devices

[itzly]

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:Those RC devices

[david_thornley]

Spinoff technologies are a bad reason for anything. If they were worth having, then they could have been developed independently, or they could have been spinoffs from some other program that may be better on its core merits.

Re:Those RC devices

[Your.Master]

We have all sorts of spinoffs from the unmanned space program too.

Re:Those RC devices

[morgauxo]

Sure, Tang is cool I guess. I am a bit more excited about microwave ovens, better integrated circuits which enabled personal computers and important things like that which came out of the Apollo program but hey.. if Tang is what floats your boat then whatever.

"Yeah! Because we just left the ISS floating around up there doing nothing sciencey for YEARS before somebody said "let's try to grow some plants!" "

No but it hasn't been doing the "sciency stuff" it was supposed to. It was sold to the public as a development platform to develop the technologies needed to live for long periods in space. That's what NASA said they were going to do anyway.

Growing plants in zero G being a great example of this as they provide food and oxygen. What it has been used for however is to give private companies a taxpayer funded zero G labratory to study how various crystals form and other chemical reactions without the influence of gravity.

Don't get me wrong.. there are some great material science and drug applications there but the goal of developing tech for living beyond the Earth seems to have been mostly forgotten since the thing was launched.

Re:Those RC devices

[morgauxo]

Really? Rovers can dig under the surface better? Citation needed!

Rovers have brought us some great information but now we are hitting the limits of what they can do and all we are getting in re-runs of the same great discoveries.

Robot scratched the surface of a rock.. found evidence of ancient water. Robot sampled surface soil... found products of broken down organics. It was news years ago. And yet it's still all we hear today.

Robot digs some feet down and finds things that haven't been sterilized by UV... Nope... not happening.

Re:Those RC devices

[morgauxo]

"Because it's both insanely expensive as well as utterly pointless."

So the greatest aspiration of humanity should be to get fat sitting in a chair observing the universe from afar? Why not just go extinct imediately? What's the point?

If we aren't moving towards a future then what's the point of the present?

Re:Mars One Plan

[plopez]

More people need to read up on this experiment:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B...

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:Worthless endeavor

[plopez]

I've posted this elsewhere. After reading this you should be a skeptic:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B...

Re:Mars One Plan

[morgauxo]

Doesn't matter to me. I only pay taxes in one nation. I only get to vote in one nation.

Not that I can really do anything about my own nation doing jack shit for 40 years but I can do even less regarding all the others!

We're Not Ready

[MarkvW]

Don't send humans until a fully functional and seriously redundant habitat has been created. When we can do all of that, it's time to move in. If we can't, we're not ready.

We're not ready.

Re:Mars One Plan

[sudon't]

Recently NASA proposed “ecopoiesis” on Mars –- creating a functioning ecosystem that can support life.

Oh, heck. Let's just terraform the whole place.

Easy Three-Step Plan

[jonadab]

1. Go to Mars.
2. There is no step 2.
3. There is no step 3 either.

Farmers?

[cwsumner]

I wonder if the research group had anyone that actually knew anything about farming? I doesn't sound like it.

They say "die of lack of oxygen" and "Fire from too much oxygen" at the same time? Strange...

I think it was a bunch of freshman students. 8-)

Re: Mars One Plan

[LinuxLuver]

The Chinese are the best bet. Now technologically advanced and also determined to get it done. They also don't have a GOP to wreck everything.

Re:Mars One Plan

[eric_harris_76]

Carbon dioxide likely won't be enough. Best to drop some big-ass ice chunks, too.

Now all that's left is to drop in some nitrogen, and get rid of the hydrogen in some of the water. (Turning it into helium would also release energy, I hear. That could come in handy on a cold planet.)

And now and again, add more (net) oxygen and nitrogen to replace what leaks out the top.

Mars really needs more mass. Higher gravity would help with the leakages.

Would somebody please get working on these things?