View Poll Results: Is it possible to colonize Mars?

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  • Yes. Even the current level of technological development enables it.

    10 35.71%
  • It's not possible at present, though it might become possible in the future.

    16 57.14%
  • No way. Humans will never be able to colonize other planets.

    2 7.14%
  • Let me explain...

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Thread: Is it possible to colonize Mars?

  1. #21
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    Default @Svanhild

    There can be no doubt that both oxygen and the inert gas component of the Martian atmosphere, nitrogen &/or argon would be lost from the Martian atmosphere by diffusion. Nitrogen is retained and conserved by vegetation and oxygen is released by vegetation as a by-product of photosynthesis. The extent to which either of these processes would tend to offset loss by diffusion is hard to estimate.

    However, the Martian atmosphere would surely require periodic, if not continuous replenishment. This was recognised by Edgar Rice Burroughs in his Martian stories, "A Princess of Mars", 1917, and many others. There would have to be "atmosphere plants" to maintain a breathable atmosphere. Oxygen would be replenished through the electrolysis of water.

    Of course, on Mars, water is not an inexhaustible resource. It, too, would have to be replenished . Mars is close to the Asteroid Belt in which there are numerous bodies of water ice which could be nudged into collision courses with the Martian polar regions.

    These bodies would have to be explored and analysed carefully to assure that they do not contain dangerous quantities of cyanogen or ammonia. It is not known whether there is free nitrogen or argon in the Asteroid Belt.

    Argon is suitable for an inert component of the Martian atmosphere though it cannot be used by vegetation. Argon is almost surely present on and in the rocky bodies of the Asteroid Belt because it is a decay product of the radioactive isotope of potassium, K-40 .

    Indeed, the possibility of using Mars as a base for spacecraft employed in deflecting the orbits of asteroids and comets which endanger life on Earth is a major reason to colonise Mars.

  2. #22
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    I think the real question would be - is it important to colonize the Mars?!

    Ye, ye resources etc etc

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    Default Why Colonise Mars ?

    I just gave you a reason. Every year, Earth has close encounters with asteroids and other bodies which would do some damage if they were to strike our planet. At longer intervals, there are near misses by large bodies a collision with which would be a major disaster.

    Mars could provide us with a distant early warning station for such potential collisions and could serve as a base for specialised spacecraft designed to deflect (perhaps by the use of giant lasers) such bodies out of orbits which intersect Earth's.

    We cannot go on trusting to luck, and it is sheer luck that there has not been a significant impact event since the Tunguska event of 1906. If even that had taken place in a densely populated area, it would have been a major disaster comparable to ther nuclear bombing of Hiroshima.

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    We do not need something like this right now. Its definitely not possible right now, if so there would be attempts to do so. Maybe in year 3000 it will be feasible. lol.

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    A scientist is claiming to have developed a rocket which could travel between Earth and Mars in just 39 days:

    http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20100226...sspacenasamars

    A journey from Earth to Mars could soon take just 39 days -- cutting current travel time nearly six times -- according to a rocket scientist who has the ear of the US space agency.

    Franklin Chang-Diaz, a former astronaut and a physicist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), says reaching the Red Planet could be dramatically quicker using his high-tech VASIMR rocket, now on track for lift-off after decades of development.

    The Variable Specific Impulse Magnetoplasma Rocket -- to give its full name -- is quick becoming a centerpiece of NASA's future strategy as it looks to private firms to help meet the astronomical costs of space exploration.

    NASA, still reeling from a political decision to cancel its Constellation program that would have returned a human to the moon by the end of the decade, has called on firms to provide new technology to power rovers or even future manned missions.

    Hopes are now pinned on firms like Chang-Diaz's Texas-based Ad Astra Rocket Company.

    "In the early days... NASA support for the project was rather minimal because the agency did not emphasize advanced technologies as much as it's doing now," Chang-Diaz told AFP.

    NASA was focused instead on the series of Apollo missions that delivered men to the moon for the first, and so far last, times.

    "They were mesmerized by the Apollo days and lived in the Apollo era for 40 years, and they just forgot developing something new," he said.

    Chang-Diaz, 60, hopes that "something" is a non-chemical rocket that could speed a return to the moon and eventually allow for a manned trip to Mars -- long the Holy Grail for Apollonians.

    His rocket would use electricity to transform a fuel -- likely hydrogen, helium or deuterium -- into plasma gas that is heated to 51.8 million degrees Fahrenheit (11 million degrees Celsius). The plasma gas is then channeled into tailpipes using magnetic fields to propel the spacecraft.

    That would send a shuttle hurtling toward the moon or Mars at ever faster speeds up to an estimated 35 miles (55 kilometers) per second until the engines are reversed.

    Chang-Diaz, a veteran of seven space missions, said this rapid acceleration could translate into a round trip voyage to Mars that would last as little as three years, including a forced stay of 18 months on the Red Planet, as astronauts await an opening to return to Earth.

    The distance between the Earth and Mars varies between 35 and 250 million miles (55 million and 400 million kilometers) depending on their points of orbit.

    And the use of ionized fuel could have the extra benefit of helping create a magnetic field around the spacecraft to protect against radiation.

    Scaled-down models of the VASIMR craft have been built and tested in a vacuum, under a deal with NASA.

    The next major step, according to Chang-Diaz, will be orbital deployment at the end of 2013 of a vessel using the 200-kilowatt prototype VASIMR engine, the VX-200.

    Talks are underway with fellow space firms SpaceX and Orbital Science Corp to make that a reality.

    Despite the hurdles ahead, Chang-Diaz sees the potential for a vast market for his technology -- maintaining and repairing fixing satellites or launching robotic and commercial missions to Mars.

    His rocket may just launch NASA's brave new, commercial, world of space exploration.

  6. #26
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    Quote Originally Posted by SwordoftheVistula View Post
    A scientist is claiming to have developed a rocket which could travel between Earth and Mars in just 39 days:

    http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20100226...sspacenasamars

    A journey from Earth to Mars could soon take just 39 days -- cutting current travel time nearly six times -- according to a rocket scientist who has the ear of the US space agency.

    Franklin Chang-Diaz, a former astronaut and a physicist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), says reaching the Red Planet could be dramatically quicker using his high-tech VASIMR rocket, now on track for lift-off after decades of development.

    The Variable Specific Impulse Magnetoplasma Rocket -- to give its full name -- is quick becoming a centerpiece of NASA's future strategy as it looks to private firms to help meet the astronomical costs of space exploration.

    NASA, still reeling from a political decision to cancel its Constellation program that would have returned a human to the moon by the end of the decade, has called on firms to provide new technology to power rovers or even future manned missions.

    Hopes are now pinned on firms like Chang-Diaz's Texas-based Ad Astra Rocket Company.

    "In the early days... NASA support for the project was rather minimal because the agency did not emphasize advanced technologies as much as it's doing now," Chang-Diaz told AFP.

    NASA was focused instead on the series of Apollo missions that delivered men to the moon for the first, and so far last, times.

    "They were mesmerized by the Apollo days and lived in the Apollo era for 40 years, and they just forgot developing something new," he said.

    Chang-Diaz, 60, hopes that "something" is a non-chemical rocket that could speed a return to the moon and eventually allow for a manned trip to Mars -- long the Holy Grail for Apollonians.

    His rocket would use electricity to transform a fuel -- likely hydrogen, helium or deuterium -- into plasma gas that is heated to 51.8 million degrees Fahrenheit (11 million degrees Celsius). The plasma gas is then channeled into tailpipes using magnetic fields to propel the spacecraft.

    That would send a shuttle hurtling toward the moon or Mars at ever faster speeds up to an estimated 35 miles (55 kilometers) per second until the engines are reversed.

    Chang-Diaz, a veteran of seven space missions, said this rapid acceleration could translate into a round trip voyage to Mars that would last as little as three years, including a forced stay of 18 months on the Red Planet, as astronauts await an opening to return to Earth.

    The distance between the Earth and Mars varies between 35 and 250 million miles (55 million and 400 million kilometers) depending on their points of orbit.

    And the use of ionized fuel could have the extra benefit of helping create a magnetic field around the spacecraft to protect against radiation.

    Scaled-down models of the VASIMR craft have been built and tested in a vacuum, under a deal with NASA.

    The next major step, according to Chang-Diaz, will be orbital deployment at the end of 2013 of a vessel using the 200-kilowatt prototype VASIMR engine, the VX-200.

    Talks are underway with fellow space firms SpaceX and Orbital Science Corp to make that a reality.

    Despite the hurdles ahead, Chang-Diaz sees the potential for a vast market for his technology -- maintaining and repairing fixing satellites or launching robotic and commercial missions to Mars.

    His rocket may just launch NASA's brave new, commercial, world of space exploration.

    Whoa.....I think you are putting the cart before the horse.

    Like most things in life, flying to Mars looks easy on paper. But in reality, it is almost insanely risky, technologically fanciful (at least by 2009 standards) and of course horrendously expensive. Here at Cheap Astronomy, we like doing things on paper.

    Planning a spaceflight is all about reducing weight and finding fuel efficiencies. One of the heaviest things you are going to have to lift off the Earth is your fuel, so you need to make your spacecraft as light as it can be and try and limit how much fuel you need for the trip – because you have to take it all with you. For every bit of extra fuel you think you’ll need, you’ll have to take extra fuel to lift that extra fuel – which means even more extra fuel and so on.

    Some of the other heavy stuff you are going to need to get to Mars includes enough consumables, like oxygen, food and water, to last you for about two years. You’ll also need some kind of heaving shielding to protect you from the intense radiation out past Earth’s magnetosphere – including the surface of Mars itself.

    You are almost certainly going to need a whole separate spacecraft as well, like the Apollo lunar module, so you can undock and land when you achieve Mars orbit – and take off again after you’ve had a bit of a walk around. Otherwise you would have to land all the consumables and the fuel needed for your return trip and launch them off the surface again when you have finished your Mars mission – which wouldn’t be very fuel efficient.

    Apparently landing on Mars also carries its own complications. The atmosphere is too thin for aero-braking to have much effect on a big spacecraft carrying humans. This means you will have to slow your spacecraft down with retrofire. And guess what that means? Yep, you are going to have to carry more fuel, which means your spacecraft will have more mass and more momentum, so it will need even more fuel to slow itself down and land on the surface – and you already know this story.

    Mars’ gravity is only 40% of Earth’s, but remember that the Moon’s gravity is only 17% of Earth’s. So your Mars module will need to be a lot bigger than the lunar module was – or at least its fuel tank will need to be.

    In a nutshell, if you want to fly to Mars, start inventing now. As well as your light weight, but lead-shielded spacecraft – you will need to lift probably several oil tankers worth of fuel. And of course it will take more tankers of fuel just to get the first lot of tankers into orbit.

    Of course instead of oil, we are talking large amounts of liquid hydrogen/oxygen and some hypergolics. Alternatively, we could just plan ahead in anticipation of someone discovering an incredibly light weight and ultra-efficient Inventi-fuel along with some lightweight-but-lead-dense Inventi-shields needed for the spacecraft. As long as all that happens, this whole thing will be a piece of cake.

    Otherwise, it seems reasonable to assume that a mission to Mars will need to engage a workforce in the hundreds of thousands over a decade or more and during this intense period there may not be enough extra money or infrastructure around for people to fight wars and stuff – so yeah, all that is going to happen real soon.

    But hey, apart from all those fiddly practicalities, the flight plan to Mars is a piece of cake. You just go up and turn right. We’ve done the go up thing plenty of times now. The smart thing is to launch your rocket from near the equator, which is moving much faster than any other part of the globe – and then let your rocket lean over to the east in flight, since the Earth is spinning towards the east so you get that bit of a leg up into orbit.

    Once in a direct orbit (that is an orbit in the same direction the Earth is spinning) you can consider your next step – and the first thing to consider is that although you may be technically in orbit around the Earth – really both you and the Earth are in orbit around the Sun – and both moving at about 30 kilometres per second relative to the Sun.

    If you can imagine looking down on the solar system from above the Earth’s north pole, then you would see the Earth rotating on its axis in an anti-clockwise direction – as well as orbiting the Sun in an anti-clockwise direction. Indeed all the planets will also be orbiting the Sun in an anti-clockwise direction. So from Earth you’ll need to turn right to go to Mars or turn left to go to Venus.

    The most fuel efficient kind of interplanetary mission – at least to Mars or Venus – involves initiating a Hohmann interplanetary transfer orbit. This involves firing your rockets in one burst to put you on an elliptical trajectory that transfers you from one solar orbit to another. The trajectory is always going to be elliptical because you are still deep within the Sun’s gravity well. Firing your rockets in a quick burst will move you up or down the gravity well, but as soon as you stop firing, the curvature of space-time will determine your subsequent trajectory.

    Anyway, when I say you turn right to go to Mars – all you really have to do is fire your rockets to propel you ahead of the direction the Earth is travelling around the Sun – meaning you are increasing your velocity relative to the Sun. This gets you that bit closer to the escape velocity from the Sun, so you move up the gravity well towards Mars’ orbit – that is, right. If you wanted to go to Venus you would actually have to do a retrofire, reducing your velocity relative to the Sun, making you move down the gravity well towards Venus’s orbit – that is, left.

    But of course there’s more to this than just getting to Mars’ orbit. If Mars’ orbit is at the far end of your elliptical trajectory you are going to have to fire your rockets again to stay there, otherwise you will just keeping following your ellipse and fall back towards Earth’s orbit again. Also, you really want to time this whole manoeuvre so that you arrive at Mars orbit just as Mars is passing by. Then all you have to do is get captured in its gravity well and commence your landing.

    With today’s rocket technologies and the whole fuel-equals-weight-equals-more-fuel issue it turns out that the most fuel-efficient Hohmann orbit from Earth to Mars will take you about 259 days – or about 9 months. And of course there’s a limited launch window to ensure that when you leave Earth and follow your 9 month Hohmann orbit Mars is there waiting for you when you arrive. This timing is actually determined by the aptly named porkchop plot – try Wikipedia for more information there. The plot demonstrates that a launch window from Earth to Mars is available every 25 and a half months. This opportunity just passed us by in late 2009 – and we’ll have to wait until February 2012 for another shot – but somehow I don’t think we’re going to be ready.

    So look, I know everyone’s keen to go to Mars, but just in case all of humanity gets wiped out in the next asteroid impact – how about we build that planetary defence system people have been talking about first. Maybe clean up the atmosphere a bit too? Then we’ve got plenty of time on our hands to plan the trip properly – not to mentioning inventing all that stuff we’ll need to make it happen.
    Have you noticed that if you rearrange the letters in ‘illegal immigrants’, and add just a few more letters, it spells, ‘Go home you free-loading, benefit-grabbing, resource-sucking, baby-making, non-English-speaking ********* and take those other hairy-faced, sandal-wearing, bomb-making, camel-riding, goat-f*****g raghead c***s with you.?

  7. #27
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    sounds like some kind of ion engine? nothing new there those things have been around for a long time

  8. #28
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    Quote Originally Posted by RoyBatty View Post
    sounds like some kind of ion engine? nothing new there those things have been around for a long time

    The engine sounds good, but i have read somewhere that a spacecraft would need 4 metres of lead shielding around it to be protected from solar radiation?
    Have you noticed that if you rearrange the letters in ‘illegal immigrants’, and add just a few more letters, it spells, ‘Go home you free-loading, benefit-grabbing, resource-sucking, baby-making, non-English-speaking ********* and take those other hairy-faced, sandal-wearing, bomb-making, camel-riding, goat-f*****g raghead c***s with you.?

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    A couple things I have heard mentioned in regards to the fuel situation:

    Launch from a spacestation which orbits the earth. This cuts down on the fuel needed to escape from Earth.

    Manufacture fuel for the return trip on Mars using elements found there.

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    http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2010/08/mars-farming/

    Mars explorers could use complicated mechanical systems to produce oxygen and filter waste, and eat food carried from Earth. Or they could just save a lot of hassle and plant crops.

    A model of Martian gravity’s effects on water flow, nutrient dynamics and root-feeding microbes suggests it’s possible to farm in the Red Planet’s soil.
    “In terms of biogeochemistry and in interms of hydraulics, I’m pretty confident it could work,” said Federico Maggi, a University of Sydney biogeochemist who conducted the simulation.

    Growing plants in soil on Mars might seem old-fashioned for those raised on the futuristic prospect of hydroponic or aeroponic agriculture, in which crops sprout soil-free nutrient broths or mists.

    But in recent years, starry-eyed biologists have come to appreciate the importance of soil-dwelling microbes to plant roots and soil processes. Moreover, soil-based agriculture is backed by thousands of years of human-based research and development, and millions of years of natural evolution.

    “Mechanical systems are very reliable over short-term expeditions,” said Maggi. “But soil can control itself. In terms of operation error, it’s more reliable. Plants provide more benefits in terms of energy and health. And real soil performs operations that other systems cannot.”

    However, there are many unknowns about extraterrestrial agricultural biology. Among the most important is how low gravity will affect the flow of water and nutrients, and in turn microbes. Once water and nutrients get into the plants, capillary action will take care of the rest. But getting them there is the key.

    “If there’s low gravity, water will not flow down so quick. The transport of nutrients would also be slower. If transport of nutrients towards root microorganisms is not fast enough, it will suffocate them,” said Maggi.

    In a July Advances in Space Research study, Maggi and University of California, Berkeley biogeophysicist Céline Pallud simulated both Mars- and Earth-gravity root processes using BIOTOUGHREACT, a well-regarded model of soil nutrient transport and microbe dynamics developed at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.

    The simulation suggests that slower water transport is actually a good thing, preventing water from falling through the soil and being lost, along with the nitrogen it absorbs on the way.

    At Mars gravity — about one-third of Earth’s — up to 90 percent less water would be needed than in a terrestrial greenhouse, said the researchers. Much less nitrogen would also be needed.

    “You don’t have a leaching of nutrients. The nutrients you put into the soil, remain in the soil. You don’t lose them,” said Maggi. The simulated bacteria thrived on all this extra food, reaching densities between five and 10 times the usual.

    According to University of Florida agricultural engineer Ray Bucklin, an advisor to the Mars Foundation and author of several NASA reports on Mars greenhouse design, the nitrogen savings could be especially important.

    “Mars is nitrogen-depleted,” and any fertilizer would need to come from Earth, he said. “And in terms of the soil microbes, they would be in a pretty beneficial situation.”

    Bucklin warned that the real-world water savings would likely be much less than 90 percent. “Water movement through a plant has several other things that influence it besides what happens in the soil,” he said. At low gravity and low atmospheric pressure, “water movement through the plant would be accelerated.”

    But Bucklin still said the study “is interesting and needed to be done.”

    According to NASA plant physiologist Raymond Wheeler, most extraterrestrial crop researchers have used hydroponics or artificial soil, “which simplify their testing and allow easy recycling of water and nutrients.” But real soils “might have certain advantages,” including better waste degradation and a built-in buffer against water shortages or equipment malfunction.

    Maggi plans to perform more simulations on how other important plant nutrients, such as potassium and iron, will behave.

    Of course, the ultimate tests will come on Mars itself, and NASA’s budget problems have put a damper on such dreams. But even if NASA has problems, other programs — especially the European Space Agency — intend to have people on Mars by mid-century. Private enterprise could also sponsor the voyage.

    “We already have the engineering to put a base on Mars,” said Bucklin. “If Bill Gates wanted to blow his whole fortune, he could do it right now.”

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