Living on Mars
24 Mar 2006 7:25:55 UTC
Topic 190954
(moderation:
I was talking to some friends and we were wondering if we were able to plant enought plants on mars, enough to create enough oxygen and i would imagine this would stabilize the temperature too, would we be able to live on mars without a suit the astronauts were? I know its a long shot that we could do all this and it would take a long time, but i just curious.
Living on Mars
)
Oxygen production on Mars
RE: I was talking to some
)
Yes, but first you have to go there, and survive there on your oxygen supply, which you must have carried from Earth. At what cost in energy? And you must have enough fuel to come back, also carried from Earth. Von Braun calculated the total mass at launch in 37000 metric tons, to be assembled in Earth orbit from a number of launchers. Is it feasible? The scientific results from the Mars orbiters and rovers so far launched are impressive. What more could be obtained from a manned expedition?
Tullio
RE: RE: I was talking to
)
Dreams Tullio, wouldn’t you like to go for a week or so and check it out? If the opportunity was available today, would you go? If the price tag to visit the ISS dropped from 20 million to 2 hundred, would you make the trip? I think it would be awesome! Scientifically it might be pointless, but scientifically it is a waste of time to have sex if your intent is not to reproduce. I think the urge to explore is built in to us. How many people do you know who don’t want to go see someplace new?
RE: Dreams Tullio,
)
You don't have to go physically. Every time there is a NASA mission I watch it using RealPlayer or Mplayer on my Linux box. I print many Hubble pictures on my printer and hang them in my living room. I am a retired physicist, but I wanted to be an astronomer. The problem is a cost/benefit issue. Given limited resources, how many scientific programs (LISA included) must be aborted in order to finance a manned mission to Mars?
Tullio
i think the right way to go
)
i think the right way to go to the moon mars and beyond is ROBOTICS
we should concentrate on robotics and AI research and remote control and supervise the missions. Colony of robots on Mars is real perspective. On the moon it is even more obvious since we can remote control robots there with only 3 sec delay right from the earth. I can imagine virtual tourism to the Moon shortly after - it could be a huge business
I think use of robotics to
)
I think use of robotics to explore and tame harsh environments is quite an easy decision, all the more so if weight is a factor. But it would sure be nice if service modules could be deployed as well, to keep multi-million dollar equipment operational.
I don't know if, in my lifetime, I'll ever see a better example than what has been accomplished with the Mars rovers. Too bad it's not in the budget to send a couple more that could replace worn parts (e.g., drill bits, batteries), blow dust off solar panels, and even assist in towing a stuck rover out of difficult spot.
@ Tullio, I learned recently that we can't use a Saturn V anymore; too many of the engineers with the necessary expertise have retired. I'd still like to think a better one could be built, though. :)
I think even if the obvious
)
I think even if the obvious challenges of living on Mars (oxygen, food, water, energy, shelter)are successfully handled, you will still have the problem of low gravity, which is only 1/3 of earth. Living for an extended period of time there should dramatically weaken the astronaut's muscles, bones etc as they adjust to this environment, making them unfit to come back to earth without serious health problems.
RE: Tullio, I learned
)
Well, the French built Ariane 5, a powerful heavy launcher. Its first flight was aborted because they used software from Ariane 4 and tried to fit a long value into an integer, a mistake that a freshman would not have done, so 800m $ went into a flame...
Tullio
[quoteOxygen production on
)
[quoteOxygen production on Mars
RE: I think even if the
)
All of it true.
But the most difficult problem for living on Mars is cosmic rays. Firstly you'd get irradiated on the way there. Secondly you'd have to live underground and if you went out for a drive your Mars buggy would need a foot-thick lead roof. There would be very strict limits on the time you could spend unshielded. Thirdly you'd get irradiated on the way home.
Total radiation exposure with any likely shielding on the trip out and back would far exceed the safe lifetime limits currently imposed in the UK for workers on nuke reactors. In this respect the legth of time the trip would take would be a big problem.
The need to live underground would mean that before the first humans go to Mars, we'd need to send enough robots to build the underground shelters ahead of time, or enough explorer robots to find suitable caves.
In comparison the gravity problem is less severe. One way to address the wekened bones/musckes would be to spin the spaceship on the journey out and back to give centrifugal pseudo-gravity. By spinning the ship slowly as it left Mars, and progressively faster during the trip home there is a good hope that the explorers could re-acclimatise to Earth conditions. In that respect the length of the journey would be an advantage. But we won't know till we go.
Any volunteers?
See Mars only from under the surface and come back possibly sterile and possibly a wheelchair user for the rest of my possibly shortened life? Sorry, not me. I agree with a previous contributor who suggested we leave it to the robots...
In contrast, the Moon, which is close enough to visit and get back from without getting fried -- if I could afford it I'd go tomorrow.
~~gravywavy