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I like the idea of sending a comet to Mars but I think by the time we will be able to send a comet to Mars we will already (hopefully) have people on Mars and they would not like to die just to have more fresh water. As the effects of a comet would make Mars a hellish place for a long time.
Ok first let me say I am not a evil :angry: scientist this is just a idea for discusion.
If an asteroid was headed to earth we would need to slow it down or alter its direction. Before we can do that for real we are going to need to do it in a test.
So how about using one of the moons of Mars which are really just asteroids that are going to fall to Mars some day as a test bed for the technology. After studying the asteroid and learning all we want to know about it we use the asteroid device to slow one of the moons, and send it crashing into an area we want to study on Mars this newly formed crater would make an great site for study and possibly a great site for the first manned landing. We get to study a asteroid, a new technology, study a asteroid impact in real time, the after effects of a impact and a freshly expossed site on Mars.
So what do you think.
Interesting replies everyone Thanks
So if you send some food staples ahead of the time in semi-hard landing cargo containers on slow travel do you have to worry about solar or cosmic radiation? What I mean is, is it possible for food to be harmfully irradiated in the time from earth. Loss of nutritional value is what I am thinking but any other harmful effects would be a concern.
John H
Thanks for all the serious replies guys
If one is to use the options that take the longest in RobS post how long before the soil in your green house is ready for a planting of food crops?
Do you think grown food on mars should come from hydroponical greenhouses only with the soil greenhouse only a science program on the first mission?
RobS do you think genetically modified species to remove undesirable trace elements will be needed or could one just plant the a crop or two of say potatoes let them take up all the trace elements that potatoes take up and dispose of those crops then plant only potatoes in that soil.
Once again thanks for the serious replies
John H
So you send a group of geologists and mineralogists to Mars and they spend all day in a greenhouse growing plants. Or you decide to free up every spare minute for work outside, but the food they pack along adds a lot of mass. What if, rather than expecting them to farm full-time or sending all of their food with them, you send some of it ahead of time in food drops? These would be large cargo containers filled with food staples and launched on rockets years ahead of time with semi-hard landings near the area where the lander will arrive later to start making fuel for the return trip. What, if any, savings could be bled from this mass of items traveling economy class?
Regards from the Rock
OK, so you are on Mars and want to grow food in a greenhouse of some kind. At some point you are going to want to not grow it all hydroponically. Based on what we know of Mars mineralogy (or think we know), what would we have to add to (or extract from) the regolith of Mars to use it as soil for growing plants? What one can use to grow plants for non-food uses would be less worrisome than what we must have if we are to use the soil for food production. So any would-be gardeners out there ready to turn a dusty red thumb into a green one?
Regards from the Rock.
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