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I agree that in theory it would be possible to create a near fully-automated facility on Mars, the real question is how much it would weigh.
How many launches would it take to achieve such a complex facility? Over a hundred would be my guess
Theoretically possible but simply not practical given politics and economics
I agree with JimM, I can't see how mining, separating, condensing, launching, landing, and recovering deuterium will be cheaper than just doing it on Earth. Deuterium may be more abundant on Mars but the number of steps added to get it to a reactor are huge.
On top of that, if the boil-off rate is 1% a week the whole idea becomes completely impossable instead of just unfeasable.
The only marketable products coming from Mars in the near future would be advertising and multi-media entertainment. Information based products that can be transported cheaply without loss of quality. Find a multi-billion dollar advertising/entertainment product from Mars and you've got the means to a colony.
This thread was started in jest right???
Out of the 6 billion people on Earth do u really think our best candidates for Space exploration and colonisation are criminals? Considering the government won't let u train to be a military pilot if u have so much as a speeding ticket could anyone think they would send criminals off to start a space colony?
There must be thousands of trained, experienced, law abiding citizens in the world that would PAY to be the first to Mars no matter what the risk, living condition, pay, or work requirements are.
Please tell me this was all meant as a joke
I've always been in favor of doming over a small canyon. That way all the hard digging is already done and all you have to do is add a durable roof.
Even better would be to use a large lava tube ala KSR (I think). All you have to do that way is add an air lock in the opening and your done.
You're assuming that Earth life is normal. We could be galactic freaks with all other life evolving inside mega planets or suns or deep space. The truth is we know absolutely nothing about life out there.
The only fact we have is that we cant see or hear anyone else out there.
OK assuming deuterium mining is profitable on Mars wouldn't it be safer and more cost effective to do it robotically? I know I'm not making myself popular by being the devil's advocate here but I cant see how any government or corporation would risk sending humans when its cheaper and easier to use robots.
And the answer is that anything is possible, its all a matter of probabilities. Martian gravity might be better than Earth gravity, and zero gravity might be better than Martian gravity(assuming one doesnt want to re-enter a gravity well ever). All such questions are completely hypothetical and we could debate them for ever and still be no closer to the truth.
Deuterium. It is 5 times more common in Martian water than in Earth water.
It is used in CANDU nuclear reactors in the form of heavy water to moderate reactions. Heavy water makes up 20% of a CANDUs capital costs.
http://www.campusprogram.com/reference/ … ...er.htmlIt is the fuel for first generation fusion reactors.
It is a fuel for second generation fusion reactors.
It costs about $10 million per tonne.
Who said Mars has no commercial viability?
The first mission to Mars should distill some deuterium and ship it back to Earth. Since they will do so much water processing anyway it won't be much trouble to produce the deuterium at the same time. Making deuterium starting with the first mission will both offset the costs of the mission and also demonstrate the commercial viability of Mars.
I did a few calculations a while back. There are trillions of dollars in deuterium in the polar ice caps.
Here's a nice side benefit. Since the CANDU reactors enrich uranium as they use it, it can then be used in the NTRs that ship people to Mars and more deuterium back to Earth.
Hang on, aren't fusion reactors still experimental at best with no operational models anywhere in the forseeable future? Or is one of us getting fission and fusion mixed up?
If I'm hearing u right, for Mars to be profitable we need all power generators on Earth to swap over to CANDU nuclear reactors before we go to Mars so that there is a market for the deuterium; but we need to go to Mars before that to get the deuterium to make the generators feasable, but we need to build the reactors first to make the mission profitable..... Isn't that just circular logic that would never practically happen?
In the current world climate all actions need to make a profit, where the profit in Mars???
lifes evolved on this planet under 1G gravity and has adapted to it for 4 billion years or so. I think its common sense that by this time life is most suited to the gravity that it has experienced since the beginning. Why would our bodies be better adapted to an environment we've never experienced?
I don't think i've ever heard of a way in which a mars colony/outpost could be economically viable in the short term. There isn't a government on the planet that would spend billions on an unprofitable scientific experiment that has little public support. There is even less chance of a corporation doing it.
Unless we can find a way to make money out of Mars it will forever be a dream.
Pessimistic maybe but history repeats itself.
geo_flux
people said that disaster and mass unemployment would strike because of industrialisation. automated systems need only a fraction of the workforce to run them. instead of disaster we ended up with a whole new range of employment options and an increase in the standard of living.
much the same should happen if heavy industry is moved off-planet. new employments will be created to fill the void, tourism has already been mentioned, other examples include R&D, programming, telepresence, entertainment, etc etc.
It seems to me that arguments favouring Mars over asteroids are mainly emotional or based on opinion. If we are to become space faring we should utilise space to its fullest and that means space habitats. why enter another gravity well after spending so much energy getting out of one in the first place?
geo_flux
(long time reader first time writer)
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