No settlement is going to be world-wide. We're talking possibly an airtight glass dome sealed over some martian bedrock. Then you can compress under the dome and give people a place to live.
It's the first thing that came up when I looked into getting oxygen from carbon dioxide, it looks like they can run CO2 past this device to decouple some CO which can be used industrially with an O. Either way I agree compressors will be critical to using the atmosphere for anything, since the existing atmosphere is 1% of earth's. I agree, large amounts of energy will be required, and nuclear is probably the best bet. Solar won't produce enough power to allow the processes required to make a settlement function. Such a settlement will use obscene amounts of energy per-capita.
I just realised, getting nitrogen will be deceptively easy. Cool outside air to -80 to form CO2 ice that can be processed using the aforementioned process to generate oxygen and CO feedstock, and compress the remaining gas. The remainder will be mostly nitrogen and argon. You'll need to process one hell of a lot of atmosphere to get the sort of N2 you'll need, but it'd do the trick. To prevent erosion from utterly destroying the compressors, a large electrostatic precipitator would be the best bet, with a conveyor belt taking the dust somewhere else. Earth industry has a lot of experience with removing particulates from stack emissions, which I think would be useful there.
Sorry, I'm not really that interested in responding to a post that appears to be mostly bravado. Other discussions discussed facts, you're more interested in rhetoric.
Show me you've got more than bravado and I'd be happy to talk.
I'm definitely not arguing that it'd be a cinch. The challenge is part of the reward. If we can address the problems of building a colony in a place with no readily available energy or oxygen, then maybe we can deal with our energy and air problems at home.
As for carbon, there is actually a process now that'll take electricity and CO2 and produce CO and O using electricity and a semiconductor. You can take the CO and use it as feedstock to get more carbon, or combine it with hydrogen and get diesel fuel.
I was worried about Nitrogen, but we may be in luck. Analysis of the mars lander showed perchlorate salts, which may include ammonium perchlorate, which can be easily processed into oxygen, nitrogen, and water by simply adding heat.
The thing is, if humanity wants to break out of this solar system, or even stop destroying earth's environment, then we'd better be able to do something simple like live on another planet with copious natural minerals at our disposal. Until we can do something that simple, we definitely can't create a self-sustaining spacecraft or even stop wrecking our own planet.
Mars rock is terrible for insulating properties, which is why the nights are so incredibly cold compared to the days.
Best bet for power is definitely nuclear. Lots of power with very little mass for fuel. If we can find uranium, the colony may be very close to self-sustaining in most respects.
You're missing the basic point though. In order to get the oxygen to burn the hydrocarbon fuels, you've got to already have energy from somewhere. Electrolysis is an incredibly energy intensive operation, so if you've got enough energy to get O2 for that, odds are the hydrocarbons aren't helping.
Full-scale terraforming is outside the realm of possibility. I'm thinking more along the lines of enclosed colonies sealed to bedrock. If you need to build, you build down and across instead of around. The rock won't be 100% airtight, but with on location oxygen generation using air or rock as feedstock, it's not a huge deal to throw some O2 into the martian atmosphere here and there.
If you have oxygen from water, then you've already got an energy source. I'm not sure it'd turn out to be energy positive burning the hydrocarbons at that point.
My Shreve's process industries book is thicker than my arm. I'm fully aware that it's not going to be possible to become 100% cut off from Earth because process tech isn't simple.
However, it would be possible for Mars to become substantially self-sustaining, imho. There's so much oxygen and iron, for example, that the entire planet is tinted red. The big problem would be energy. Earth is one of the few places in the solar system with energy reserves just sitting there waiting for a match. Hopefully we could find Uranium or something. With self-sustaining energy reserves, the colony would actually be reasonable to have, and people could live for years, possibly even reproduce.
I think the cost would be worth it. The money spent on developing the technology to live on Mars would create technology with direct application to tackling climate change, petroleum shortages, and I'm certain other problems here on earth. Learning how to live on a planet with little atmosphere and no life would help us learn how to better minimize our impact on this planet, with a healthy atmosphere and lots of life.
After you make that teflon washer, however, lots of your industrial processes can be used for other things. For example, the sulphuric acid process doesn't care what you're using it for. Oxygen needs to be created regardless, water needs to be created regardless.
You're going to need HCL for a tonne of processes as well.
Is it going to be simple? Absolutely not. However, if you were to ask me "Hey, do you want to go live on Mars and participate in creating a new pocket of humanity in the universe?", You'd better believe my bags would be packed.
After thinking about it, I don't think the moon would make a good model for a Mars base. Any colony on any heavenly body will need to be designed around the chemistry of the place in question. No workable colony can exist unless it can gain some self-sufficiency, and nothing of the sort can exist until you look at the available resources and plan around those.
The atmosphere on Mars is 1/100th the pressure of the atmosphere on earth, but it does exist. Martial colonists could compress the existing atmosphere then use existing processes to refine oxygen from the CO2 that makes up the bulk of the atmosphere.
Oxygen is the easy part, mind you. The big question marks are hydrogen and nitrogen. If we can get all three of them from Martian or Lunar environments, it becomes just as easy as you say.
It can be argued that burning existing hydrocarbons isn't going to cause runaway greenhouse effect. The same can't be argued of burning a moon worth of hydrocarbons we shipped in from elsewhere.
We need to know more about Mars before we say it's not possible to survive there. If the soil has lots of Ammonium Perchlorate, humans could live on the surface of Mars indefinitely as long as food supplies held, since it'd provide exothermic reactions for heat/power, oxygen, nitrogen, and water when heated gently.
Slashdot Mirror
I've got pull with the Big Guy, so watch it.
You liberated God?
Go buy a PC without windows installed.
Oh, it's virtually impossible? Only one or two choices among thousands?
Guess why? Because Microsoft has a monopoly on operating systems such that they an dictate to oems that they'll put windows on every PC.
It's been a bit better since the court case, but that only shows they were a monopoly -- and an abusive one at that -- in the first place.
Not too many natural people with immortality.
Talk about limiting yourself to the bottom of the barrel.
If they were good academics, they'd have peer reviewed studies showing whether their interview methods filtered people the way they wanted.
It's completely useless if they just assume their process works.
No settlement is going to be world-wide. We're talking possibly an airtight glass dome sealed over some martian bedrock. Then you can compress under the dome and give people a place to live.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/04/070418091932.htm
It's the first thing that came up when I looked into getting oxygen from carbon dioxide, it looks like they can run CO2 past this device to decouple some CO which can be used industrially with an O. Either way I agree compressors will be critical to using the atmosphere for anything, since the existing atmosphere is 1% of earth's. I agree, large amounts of energy will be required, and nuclear is probably the best bet. Solar won't produce enough power to allow the processes required to make a settlement function. Such a settlement will use obscene amounts of energy per-capita.
I just realised, getting nitrogen will be deceptively easy. Cool outside air to -80 to form CO2 ice that can be processed using the aforementioned process to generate oxygen and CO feedstock, and compress the remaining gas. The remainder will be mostly nitrogen and argon. You'll need to process one hell of a lot of atmosphere to get the sort of N2 you'll need, but it'd do the trick. To prevent erosion from utterly destroying the compressors, a large electrostatic precipitator would be the best bet, with a conveyor belt taking the dust somewhere else. Earth industry has a lot of experience with removing particulates from stack emissions, which I think would be useful there.
Sorry, I'm not really that interested in responding to a post that appears to be mostly bravado. Other discussions discussed facts, you're more interested in rhetoric.
Show me you've got more than bravado and I'd be happy to talk.
I'm definitely not arguing that it'd be a cinch. The challenge is part of the reward. If we can address the problems of building a colony in a place with no readily available energy or oxygen, then maybe we can deal with our energy and air problems at home.
As for carbon, there is actually a process now that'll take electricity and CO2 and produce CO and O using electricity and a semiconductor. You can take the CO and use it as feedstock to get more carbon, or combine it with hydrogen and get diesel fuel.
I was worried about Nitrogen, but we may be in luck. Analysis of the mars lander showed perchlorate salts, which may include ammonium perchlorate, which can be easily processed into oxygen, nitrogen, and water by simply adding heat.
The thing is, if humanity wants to break out of this solar system, or even stop destroying earth's environment, then we'd better be able to do something simple like live on another planet with copious natural minerals at our disposal. Until we can do something that simple, we definitely can't create a self-sustaining spacecraft or even stop wrecking our own planet.
Mars rock is terrible for insulating properties, which is why the nights are so incredibly cold compared to the days.
Best bet for power is definitely nuclear. Lots of power with very little mass for fuel. If we can find uranium, the colony may be very close to self-sustaining in most respects.
You're missing the basic point though. In order to get the oxygen to burn the hydrocarbon fuels, you've got to already have energy from somewhere. Electrolysis is an incredibly energy intensive operation, so if you've got enough energy to get O2 for that, odds are the hydrocarbons aren't helping.
Full-scale terraforming is outside the realm of possibility. I'm thinking more along the lines of enclosed colonies sealed to bedrock. If you need to build, you build down and across instead of around. The rock won't be 100% airtight, but with on location oxygen generation using air or rock as feedstock, it's not a huge deal to throw some O2 into the martian atmosphere here and there.
If you have oxygen from water, then you've already got an energy source. I'm not sure it'd turn out to be energy positive burning the hydrocarbons at that point.
My Shreve's process industries book is thicker than my arm. I'm fully aware that it's not going to be possible to become 100% cut off from Earth because process tech isn't simple.
However, it would be possible for Mars to become substantially self-sustaining, imho. There's so much oxygen and iron, for example, that the entire planet is tinted red. The big problem would be energy. Earth is one of the few places in the solar system with energy reserves just sitting there waiting for a match. Hopefully we could find Uranium or something. With self-sustaining energy reserves, the colony would actually be reasonable to have, and people could live for years, possibly even reproduce.
I think the cost would be worth it. The money spent on developing the technology to live on Mars would create technology with direct application to tackling climate change, petroleum shortages, and I'm certain other problems here on earth. Learning how to live on a planet with little atmosphere and no life would help us learn how to better minimize our impact on this planet, with a healthy atmosphere and lots of life.
I think the phrase they use is "Straight edge".
He's right regardless.
Factories have maintenance crews consisting of dozens of people, and that's for equipment in the best of conditions, rather than a martian windstorm.
"If that's true, why were you afraid to sign your name?"
Because NASA isn't going to use Slashdot to recruit volunteers for a Mars mission?
I tried that once.
Be careful. The threatening classical music gets really annoying after a few days.
Sure you can. Just remodulate the Tachyon emitters.
How about the skeleton of the first human to step foot on mars?
After you make that teflon washer, however, lots of your industrial processes can be used for other things. For example, the sulphuric acid process doesn't care what you're using it for. Oxygen needs to be created regardless, water needs to be created regardless.
You're going to need HCL for a tonne of processes as well.
Is it going to be simple? Absolutely not. However, if you were to ask me "Hey, do you want to go live on Mars and participate in creating a new pocket of humanity in the universe?", You'd better believe my bags would be packed.
After thinking about it, I don't think the moon would make a good model for a Mars base. Any colony on any heavenly body will need to be designed around the chemistry of the place in question. No workable colony can exist unless it can gain some self-sufficiency, and nothing of the sort can exist until you look at the available resources and plan around those.
The atmosphere on Mars is 1/100th the pressure of the atmosphere on earth, but it does exist. Martial colonists could compress the existing atmosphere then use existing processes to refine oxygen from the CO2 that makes up the bulk of the atmosphere.
Oxygen is the easy part, mind you. The big question marks are hydrogen and nitrogen. If we can get all three of them from Martian or Lunar environments, it becomes just as easy as you say.
It can be argued that burning existing hydrocarbons isn't going to cause runaway greenhouse effect. The same can't be argued of burning a moon worth of hydrocarbons we shipped in from elsewhere.
We need to know more about Mars before we say it's not possible to survive there. If the soil has lots of Ammonium Perchlorate, humans could live on the surface of Mars indefinitely as long as food supplies held, since it'd provide exothermic reactions for heat/power, oxygen, nitrogen, and water when heated gently.