Personally I wouldn't describe the Martian atmosphere as being "essentially a vacuum". It is very thin however. It's about.7 -.9 kPa. I believe this would be similar to being at 80,000ft on Earth. But there is enough of an atmosphere on Mars to cause everything from small dust devils to massive dust storms that cover a large portion of the planet.
There are a number of things wrong with that article.
1) The images are false colour. All images taken by the rovers (or any probe for that matter) are never true colour. They generally take images through various infra red and green and ultraviolet filters. When combined, they create unnatural coloured images. So that blue soil you see wouldn't really be blue if it were to be seen with the naked eye.
2) The specific image shown were taken on the rim of Endurance crater, not at the floor of it. Water can't exactly pool on a slope.
3) Although the summery on slashdot here says "newly taken images...". This is also incorrect. They were taken in 2004.
I don't doubt that there is water on Mars, but I don't think it can pool on the surface (due to the low atmospheric pressure), nor do I think this photo contains any evidence of pooling water either. It may contain evidence of past water how ever.
Well the thing is, most (if not all) interplanetary probes do not get launched into Earth orbit first. The MRO, for example, was launched into a Hohmann transfer orbit. Even if they were to have tested it in Earth orbit first and found something was wrong, then what? It's not like the shuttle could just go up and get it either.
15,000eV may sound like a lot, but it's not really. There's about 20,000eV of energy hitting your T.V. screen. And I don't think the radiation emitted from the aurora's (IR, UV, X-rays, etc) could be any worse than what we already get directly from the Sun.
I'm not 100% sure on this, but I think they just define the sides (North, East, South and West) relative to Earth. So if there is some activity on the surface of the Sun that's more on the right side of it (from our perspective) one can just call that the East side.
If you read your own link, you will have noticed that it was made by a group of British academics and with the help of a couple UK universities. And not by the ESA, it just hitched a ride on the Mars Express. Not unlike the Cassini-Huygens mission to Saturn, where the Huygens Probe(ESA) hitched a ride with the Cassini probe(NASA). Also the Beagle 2 was not a rover, just a lander.
A bit nit picky I know, but I still...
In regards to the space suits. It sounds like you're assuming their would be clouds of dust around them. I don't recall the Apollo astronauts having any issues with dust inhalation between EVA's. Also wouldn't blasting them with some high pressure air and or water help remove any loose bits? Plus it would depend on how the suits are designed. For mining you'd probably want something tougher than the type of soft suits the Apollo Astronauts used. You'd probably want a solid space suit, as it would be much more durable. Plus I don't think the dust would stick to the hard, smooth surfaces as easily compaired to the soft suits that are used now and on Apollo. Solving the problem isn't as difficult as you make it sound.
And how much different would it be living on Mars compaired to the Moon? Besides stronger gravity and a very thin atmosphere, not much. People would still need to live in special habitats and wear space suits that protect one from the environment and cosmic rays (due to the lack of a strong magnetic field). Also their are other minerals on the Moon besides H3. Between the to places Mars would be better overall, but the Moon is a better place to start, in my opinion.
What is the point of having a permenant manned colony on the moon? We'll never terraform it. It will never be self-sufficient. The cost will never justify the science we could get out of it.
Seen the future have you? It's hard to say what would happen if Moon bases were built. I'm sure no one fore saw the "New World" becoming what it is today.
The lunar dust is as dangerous as the worst lung hazardous mining dust on Earth, and apparently it gets everywhere. There will never be an atmosphere to shield from cosmic rays.
Well due to the lack of oxygen, it's required that anyone who goes to the Moon wears a helmet. The same would go for the possible future miners. So dust inhalation is not really a concern. And their are materials that can help shield against cosmic rays. Building the base under the surface would probably help too.
Slashdot Mirror
Personally I wouldn't describe the Martian atmosphere as being "essentially a vacuum". It is very thin however. It's about .7 - .9 kPa. I believe this would be similar to being at 80,000ft on Earth. But there is enough of an atmosphere on Mars to cause everything from small dust devils to massive dust storms that cover a large portion of the planet.
There are a number of things wrong with that article.
1) The images are false colour. All images taken by the rovers (or any probe for that matter) are never true colour. They generally take images through various infra red and green and ultraviolet filters. When combined, they create unnatural coloured images. So that blue soil you see wouldn't really be blue if it were to be seen with the naked eye.
2) The specific image shown were taken on the rim of Endurance crater, not at the floor of it. Water can't exactly pool on a slope.
3) Although the summery on slashdot here says "newly taken images...". This is also incorrect. They were taken in 2004.
I don't doubt that there is water on Mars, but I don't think it can pool on the surface (due to the low atmospheric pressure), nor do I think this photo contains any evidence of pooling water either. It may contain evidence of past water how ever.
Well the thing is, most (if not all) interplanetary probes do not get launched into Earth orbit first. The MRO, for example, was launched into a Hohmann transfer orbit. Even if they were to have tested it in Earth orbit first and found something was wrong, then what? It's not like the shuttle could just go up and get it either.
15,000eV may sound like a lot, but it's not really. There's about 20,000eV of energy hitting your T.V. screen. And I don't think the radiation emitted from the aurora's (IR, UV, X-rays, etc) could be any worse than what we already get directly from the Sun.
I'm not sure if this has been posted yet, but here's an easy way to email your MP. Just got to this site and follow the steps. http://www.onlinerights.ca/get_active/copyright_re form_action/
I'm not 100% sure on this, but I think they just define the sides (North, East, South and West) relative to Earth. So if there is some activity on the surface of the Sun that's more on the right side of it (from our perspective) one can just call that the East side.
Once? More like 6 times actually.
If you read your own link, you will have noticed that it was made by a group of British academics and with the help of a couple UK universities. And not by the ESA, it just hitched a ride on the Mars Express. Not unlike the Cassini-Huygens mission to Saturn, where the Huygens Probe(ESA) hitched a ride with the Cassini probe(NASA). Also the Beagle 2 was not a rover, just a lander. A bit nit picky I know, but I still...
In regards to the space suits. It sounds like you're assuming their would be clouds of dust around them. I don't recall the Apollo astronauts having any issues with dust inhalation between EVA's. Also wouldn't blasting them with some high pressure air and or water help remove any loose bits? Plus it would depend on how the suits are designed. For mining you'd probably want something tougher than the type of soft suits the Apollo Astronauts used. You'd probably want a solid space suit, as it would be much more durable. Plus I don't think the dust would stick to the hard, smooth surfaces as easily compaired to the soft suits that are used now and on Apollo. Solving the problem isn't as difficult as you make it sound.
And how much different would it be living on Mars compaired to the Moon? Besides stronger gravity and a very thin atmosphere, not much. People would still need to live in special habitats and wear space suits that protect one from the environment and cosmic rays (due to the lack of a strong magnetic field). Also their are other minerals on the Moon besides H3. Between the to places Mars would be better overall, but the Moon is a better place to start, in my opinion.
What is the point of having a permenant manned colony on the moon? We'll never terraform it. It will never be self-sufficient. The cost will never justify the science we could get out of it.
Seen the future have you? It's hard to say what would happen if Moon bases were built. I'm sure no one fore saw the "New World" becoming what it is today.
The lunar dust is as dangerous as the worst lung hazardous mining dust on Earth, and apparently it gets everywhere. There will never be an atmosphere to shield from cosmic rays.
Well due to the lack of oxygen, it's required that anyone who goes to the Moon wears a helmet. The same would go for the possible future miners. So dust inhalation is not really a concern. And their are materials that can help shield against cosmic rays. Building the base under the surface would probably help too.
And this is funny why? Oh that's right, because it's Canada...