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Hi everyone, Tom.
Tom's post (quoted below) was off topic so I am creating a new thread here to discuss it. I encourage people to remain on topic and make new threads as needed as it makes it much easier to find the information in the forums. Anyway, here is Tom's post with my comments:
The Liberals say we have only 10 years to deal with the problem, that means we can't channel our efforts into developing Fusion power to combat the Greenhouse Effect. The liberals would like us to make immediate sacrifices and reduce our standard of living now, I say, no!
Ok, there are a whole bunch of assumptions and opinions stated as fact that I disagree with here.
The group "The Liberals" is not defined. Furthermore this sort of blanket statement calls for references. I have not seen any reputable source say we have only 10 years to fix this problem, altho small changes now have longer to work than crash changes at the last minute.
Nor do I see any reason why "The Liberals" wish to prevent development of Fusion.
It seems to me that current energy interests (currently earning trillions of dollars each year) have far more interest in preventing the development of fusion power the same way that Magnetohydrodynamics (now called Magnetoplasmadynamics) was. For more information on MHD and why it was prevented from being developed by current energy interests read the essays in "Power" edited by Bruce Stirling.
Even if we assume with out a shred of evidence that "The Liberals" are against Fusion power you do not explain why we can not have fusion research AND cleaner power. The current amount of money for fusion is tiny. It could be increased 10 fold with out changing any of the 3 significant figures of the US budget. Fusion research is obviously not a priority with the current administration. (Or of any recent US administration admittedly. Then again, how many of our US readers have written letters to their officials demanding more money get put into this area?)
Finally it is a propaganda myth that being more carbon aware will reduce the standard of living. For example, the USA can not sell cars to China (a vast market which has too many US dollars for my liking). The reason: American cars produce too many pollutants (particularilly carbon emmisions) per km traveled. US cars can not be sold in a lot of international markets because they are too dirty! In this case, making American technology cleaner would increase the ballance of trade and create US wealth.
Modern technology is often cleaner and easier to sell to world wide markets where people take the environment much more seriously.
I think coal has tremendous potential to replace oil, it emits more CO2 however, but it can replace oil.
Coal is the DIRTIEST form of power on the planet. ... Actually, I will devote a whole post to coal rather than shoving it in here.
My immediate concern is buying oil from terrorist sponsors or providing them an oil market from which they can readily raise money for their terrorist operations. My immediate concern is to find something my car can run on that provides no revenue for Middle-Eastern countries. The US has the largest reserve of coal in the World, so naturally I'd look to that source, people concerned with the Greenhouse effect would say no and that I should ride around in crappy little put put cars that can barely make it up the hill, so I can get excellent gas milage from petroleum derived fuel, or they say I should walk, or take a bicycle or rely on mass transit and live in a densely packed city.
Crappy little putt-putt cars like this one? Tesla Roadster.
Altho I agree with you that the political decision to stick closely with House Saud is moronic as far as the USA's long term intrests goes. By the way, which president put up solar collectors on top of the White House and which president took them down again?
Usually the rule for climate change is gradualism, not catastrophism, so crash programs and belt-tightening are neigther needed or wanted.
That is an interesting statement given that what planetologists have been discovering from interplanetary probes is that climate is not gradualistic. Basically our climate is a chaotic system and it is very hard to predict what a small change will do and when we will reach a tipping point.
One example: Milankovich calculated that variations in Earth's orbit would change the amount of sunlight reaching Earth in cycles of ~19,000 - ~23,000, ~41,000 and ~100,000 years. For some time they were not taken very seriously as the change in Solar insolation was less than 1%. However as we got better data on the ice ages, we found that they matched very well to the Milankovich cycles.
See "World Building" by Dr. Stephan L. Gillett or "Moon & Planets 3rd Ed" by William K. Hartmann for more details on Milankovich variations.
Finally, I am a libertarian, a rationalist and a Canadian.
Warm regards, Rick.
Hi all,
I posted this question on the Mad Sci Network (where real scientists answer questions) and Dr In Koo Kim, in Physical Atmospheric Chemistry was kind enough to give this answer:
Early observations of the Martian surface indicate acidic surface lakes/oceans in the areas sampled because of the relatively uniform ratio of the concentrations of phosophorous, sulfur, and iron. However, I don't know of any observations that would clue us into why the lakes/oceans were acidic. Speculatively speaking, one cause may have been due to extreme volcanic activity in an oxidizing atmosphere. On Earth, volcanic eruptions release vast amounts of sulfur into the atmosphere. SO2, and its relatives (collectively SOx), can be oxidized in the atmosphere to form sulfuric/sulfurous acid. Precipitation can then deposit this acidic product into the oceans.
As for terraforming Mars... while we do not know for certain that there is active volcanism on Mars (although some volcanic cones suggest a possibility), compared with the past, current volcanic activity is surely diminished.
The acid already in the soil has likely undergone reactions with the soil and underlying rocks. We cannot be sure (without further study) whether or not a return of surface waters to the Martian surface will result in the same acidic oceans as previously indicated.
Warm regards, Rick
Hi Samy.
Good question. I do not have the state diagrams for Tungsten at various temperatures and pressures. However Tungsten has a very high melting point 3422 K where as most rock (basalt) melts around 1475 K. It also has a very high density: 19.3 g/cm^3, where as basalt typically 3.011 g/cm^3. (I picked basalt as more typical of mantle rocks than most common rocks.)
In fact, the melting temperature for Basalt may be too high. In the mantle there are mixtures of minerals which tend to lower the melting points.
It seems to me likely that the tungsten 'power pellet' could be kept below its own melting point but high enough that it could melt (or at least soften) the rock around it. Another question is how quickly the heat would be carried away. If it is a smart power pellet it would watch its own skin temperature and dial back the heat producers as the temperature gets close to tungsten's melting point under local conditions.
But the short answer is that I don't know. I GUESS that it would be able to get pretty deep.
Warm regards, Rick
Hi all,
I was reading in Scientific American a few months ago about a theory on the biggest extinction event in the pre-history (and history) of Earth. The extinction event at the end of the Permian killed off 95% of aquatic species and 90% of land species.
It is strange because it did not happen suddenly (like an asteroid impact) but occurred in spurts for over a million years.
The story behind this hypotheses goes like this.
1) Continental drift caused warm seas in the equatorial areas.
2) The 'Siberian Traps' erupted (a vast area of basalt lava flows). This pumped huge amounts of carbon dioxide into the Earth's atmosphere.
3) Global warming increased the planet's temperature.
4) Warm water absorbs less oxygen.
5) Larger areas of the ocean floor became oxygen depleted. Anorexic bacteria (using sulfur as an oxidant) produce hydrogen sulfide gas.
6) This is extremely poisonous to aquatic animals and plankton. Most die.
7) The gas erupts into the atmosphere. This gas is poisonous to plants and animals which die.
8) This gas attacks the ozone layer which causes further destruction in areas far from the gas eruptions.
9) Purple algae (which are based on a hydrogen sulfide ecology and use sunlight directly for photosynthesis) appear in shallow waters replacing regular plankton. They add even more H2S and make the problem worse.
The Permian extinction is the biggest extinction even in the Earth's history but people think that a couple of the smaller events also were caused by hydrogen sulfide eruptions.
The direct evidence supporting this theory is:
1) These events already occur in the dead sea and off the coast of Namibia. We know this ecology is there and active in oxygen depleted waters. During these eruptions, lobsters flee the ocean to bake on the sand to avoid the H2S gas dissolved in the water.
2) The Permian extinction occurred during the highest levels of CO2 that we have discovered.
3) High sulfur content in marine rocks laid down then is hard otherwise to explain.
4) Rocks containing large amounts of Purple Algae are hard to explain as they can only live in low oxygen, shallow waters. They use a form of photosynthesis to produce H2S.
Indirect evidence is the lack of other explanations that resolve all these threads of data. (Indirect evidence is far weaker than direct.) In particular most explanations as to the Permian extinction have a hard time explaining why more marine species die (they usually are harder to kill than land species.)
So the point of this thread is to make a place for posts on severe possible consequences of human changes to Earth's climate (by warming it) & in particular hydrogen sulfide ecologies. Large scale flooding from the break up of the Greenland ice sheet (or less likely) the Antarctic ice sheet, I am defining as not a severe problem.
This is not an immediate problem, I should say. At current rates of increase we would have to wait until 2200 AD before we reach the Carbon Dioxide levels of some of the smaller extinction thought to be caused by Sulfur Dioxide ecologies.
I encourage people to read the original articles. Posts with references are much appreciated.
EDIT: I found the issue of Scientific American: It is the October 2006 issue. The article is called: "Global Warming & Mass Extinctions".
EDIT: Recent research (2008) suggests that the ozone layer would not be as badly damaged by methane and H2S eruptions as thought in this article.
Warm regards, Rick.
Hi Everyone, nickname.
I do not argue that liquid CO2 won't explode into vapor on Mars. It is a long way from its triple point.
There have been numerous reports in the astronomy news about signs of liquid water on modern Mars. Examples include new gullies on crater walls that show stains (such as might be made by a liquid). I am going on a business trip in a few minutes and I don't have time to hunt down references, sorry.
Brines do not boil furiously on modern Mars, they evaporate. If there is a skim of ice on top of them they evaporate slowly or, if the conditions are right, they freeze solid.
In anycase the argument about rock glaciers is not dependent on liquid water, they grow because of frost. We know that there is frost on Mars because the Viking landers and others have seen it.
The reason why Mars' atmosphere is so dry is not because Mars lacks water. It is because it is so cold.
I read somewhere that if a book does not shake you up, at least a little bit, then your time has been wasted. (By that standard, I've wasted a LOT of time.) I think you might enjoy "Mars: A Warmer Wetter Planet." It would certainly give you more amunition.
(We will likely still be arguing, "but on a higher level about more important things".)
Warm regards, Rick.
Hi Tom.
I think we have to agree to disagree. Did you read how many Saturn V's you would have to send to the oort cloud to make this happen? Do you want to convert all of Earth into rocket fuel in order to avoid wasting Venus?
If you want to move Earth too, well the Earth is heavier than Venus.
It might be easier for you to siphon off 5% of the sun's mass. Both worlds would automatically move into higher orbits and the sun would cool down. That might be enough for Venus to terraformable.
If you postulate that we have a robust He3 economy and antimatter drives, then we will be able to go to other stars in about 55 years. (See "Entering Space: Creating a Spacefaring Civilization" by Robert Zubrin.)
I suspect that the universe has a generous number of worlds that are easier to terraform than Venus.
Warm regards, Rick.
Hi everyone.
Interesting links Karov, thanks.
One way of getting radioactives / antimatter deep into Mars is to make a teardrop shaped container out of tungsten (which has a melting point well above that of rock).
Bury it deep, pack some insulation above it, and have the fission or antimatter reaction heat it above the temperature of rock but below the tungsten's melting point. As the rock melts it settles (gaining a bit potential energy). It's a little heat pill aimed at the core. You likely would get a mini volcano erupting magma and gasses especially if you use the same hole for several of these things.
If you used antimatter, you would want to have some system to slowly leak it so things remain at the right temperature. But that should not be a deal breaker.
Warm regards, Rick.
Hi everyone, Karov, Dook.
I think that a lot of the water on Mars is locked up in perma frost which will take hundreds to thousands of years to melt. (We are getting good data on the heat transfer into permafrost from watching the Canadian tundra thaw from global warming. Once you get a meter or so below the surface the heat transfer is very slow.
(This is why Fogg and KSR suggest using nukes to melt large frozen aquifers. They want seas or oceans quickly.)
I am not sure about how real these peroxides and super oxides are. They were theorized to exist to explain away the positive Viking biological experiements but I don't know of any direct evidence that they really are there. Nor have I seen any reliable estimate of how common they are.
I would be very interested if any one hears about any new evidence on these super oxides, peroxides or 'toxic dust'. My gut feeling is that this is a paper tiger but I do not know for sure.
Warm regards, Rick.
Hi Everyone,
Mars likely started off with a simular mix of volitiles as Earth. Then, where then has all of Mars' Nitrogen gone? The most likely theory (in my opinion) is that lightning has reacted the nitrogen in the air, producing nitrates. This would mean that underground there would be large nitrate beds (much like the ones they have discovered under Earth deserts).
Large impacts by iceteriods (planetoids made up largely of ice, dust and frozen gasses) can vaporize some of these nitrate beds back into nitrogen gas. Thus you get the nitrogen from the iceteroid (likely in the form of ammonia) plus a bonus from deep in the ground.
Don't worry about the form of the nitrogen. Once we have enough in the air, nitrogen fixing bacteria can put it into organic forms.
While nitrogen is not at all a green house gas there are a number of reasons why we would like to add more to Mars' atmosphere.
1) A thicker atmosphere can store more heat as vibrational energy in the molecules.
2) A thicker atm. can move more heat with wind and convection currents. In particular it is better at moving heat from the equator poleward.
3) Nitrogen will act as a buffer gas for the oxygen we hope to add.
4) Acts as greater radiation shield.
5) Protects against smaller meteors.
6) N2 will provide more distance between our (potential) ozone layer & the ground.
7) Needed for nitrogen fixing plants.
8) Any gas is valuable in Mars' near vacuum right now.
Basically, tho not a green house gas, we would like to add a significant amount of N2 to Mars' air. Any extra nitrogen is a bonus if we can get it.
I think that the Martian colonists will be the only ones willing to pay for volitiles from the Kuiper belt so they will make sure that the iceteriods don't smash their domes. I could easily see dumping the stuff on the southern highlands while the bases are built on the equator and just north of the equator.
Warm regards, Rick
Hi Everyone,
It is looking like the water on Mars were quite acidic (enough so that carbonates will not form). Given that Mars started out with a simular volitile mix as Earth (and Earth has ended up with oceans that are slightly alkaline) this is interesting to me.
This thread is intended for information on WHY the Martian seas ended up so acidic.
What are the biological implications of wide spread salty / acidic water?
This thread is also is for comments on if the problem will resolve itself if we do a "Rick Standard" terraforming of Mars, or if we will have to take steps to fix it, or if it needs to be fixed at all.
(I consider "Rick Standard" terraforming of Mars to include sollettas over the poles to speed outgassing of CO2 in the soils and perfluorocarbon green house gases. The goal is to have a oxygen producing biosphere (for ozone) but no attempt to create a human breathable atmosphere in the near term.)
Comments backed up with references are particularily appreciated!
Warm regards, Rick.
Hi nickname,
I don't really understand your question / argument. As water is vaporized by small impacts it eventually cools and frosts out all over the place including old impact craters. Moisture in the top parts of the soil may or may not sublime. If it does, it may well work its way deeper into the soil where it is stable.
In any case it can be buried by dust and sand.
With a little ground pressure and salts (to create brines with low freezing temperatures) during the summer moths some of this frost can turn liquid and work its way deeper.
I expect to find water frozen as permafrost inside old craters as well as non-cratered terrain.
Warm regards, Rick
It has been calculated that the ratio of escape velocity to average particle velocity (V.esc/V.av) can be used to estimate how long a gas can be retained by a planet.
Here's a table of figures to illustrate the relationship:-
RATIO TIME TAKEN FOR ALL THE GAS TO ESCAPE
7 Over 1 trillion years
6 Over 10 billion years
5 About 100 million years
4 Under 1 million years
3 Under 1 thousand years
Hi Shaun,
Great series of posts in this thread.
I have a quick question, where does the table above come from?
Warm regards, Rick
Hi all,
I thought I would post my bias on Terraforming:
1) It is easier for things to go down than up. (Moving comets to planets is a lot easier than moving CO2 from Venus to Mars for example.)
2) No magical nano-tech machines to solve tough problems.
3) While a totally self-sustaining ecosystem is nice, I am not troubled by having to put some effort into maintaining the terraformed planet. (Many of our modern CITIES are in unsustainable locations but people don't leave.)
4) I am most interested in Terraforming projects that can be started in the next 200 years with technology not much more advanced to our own. I expect that technological improvements will make things faster and cheaper but lets talk about what we can reasonably extrapolate to.
5) Simply moving planets about or simply making them mass a lot more to increase the surface gravity is not simple.
6) Arguments with references and math impress me a lot more than hand waving.
Having said the above Lunar terraforming is pretty much outside my interest range. However, taking this as a long range project I do have a few points.
- A fun, hard science fiction, web comic called Shlock Mercenary has a terraformed Luna (maintaining it with comets).
http://www.schlockmercenary.com/d/20000612.html
(The art gets a lot better after the first year.)
- Is anything vital to life short on Luna? Yes, Phosphorus, Sulphur, Chlorine, Carbon & many others.
- The current month long days are a pain in the butt. You don't want the plants in your lifesupport system dying out or shutting down every two weeks. Also, the huge temperatures from the long days exacerbate the atmosphere loss. I think that we will want to have a reasonable day light cycle.
- Why would people move to Luna if it was like Earth? Why do people move to places like Tuscon or Edmonton? With out technology these places would be pretty much uninhabitable. People like to have a place to call their own, and if there is livable real estate near by people will fill it up.
- Won't rotating the Moon mess up Earth? No, I doubt it. We will still get tides. Depending on if Luna is rotating retrograde or prograde we will be able to slow or reverse the way Luna is slowly moving away from Earth.
- Will rotating Luna start up volcanos? Rotating Luna will start the rocks stretching and generate heat but Luna is so small I doubt it will restart any vulcanism; Luna is too small and has been too cold for too long.
- Why get deuterium from Mars? Deuterium on Mars is 5 times more common which makes it cheaper to concentrate. However the shipping cost to Earth (magnetic sails maybe) has to get pretty low to compete with Terran deuterium.
- As for Shaun Barrett's calcuations that Luna would lose an Earth style atmosphere in 300 years, that is pretty much a deal breaker. I found it strange so many people seemed to ignore his post.
Warm regards, Rick
.... The Sun is getting brighter, so we might eventually want to move the Earth farther out anyway, though messing with a perfectly ok global climate is a dangerous thing. ...
... Mars will definitely be easier to terraform, in the end though the lower gravity environment will leave a significantly alien planet with life on it. If not maintained, Mars will likely lose its atmosphere again and revert to the same state that we found it. If Venus is terraformed and moved, it could last a billion years and have a billion years of life and evolution on it.
It is (my estimate) 12 orders of magnitude easier to top up Mars' atmosphere every 500 million years than to move Venus out to 140,000,000 km so I don't think that, "Mars leaking air", is a valid objection. Also, Earth now has a highly eccentric orbit as we move Venus thru the 3:4, 4:5, etc. resonance points. Is 10,000,000 km far enough apart now?
In the book "The Life and Death of the Planet Earth: How the New Science of Astrobiology Charts the Ultimate Fate of Our World" by Peter D. Ward and Donald Brownlee, argue that in 800 million years the warming sun will render the Earth uninhabitable.
I doubt we will be able to enjoy a billion years life on Venus even if it was moved out to 140,000,000 km from the sun.
Warm regards, Rick
Hi Everyone, nickname.
The short answer is, covered by dust and rock.
Also it is not all at the pole. On page 216 of "Terraforming: Engineering Planetary Environments" Martyn J. Fogg points out that ice is stable year round above 40 degrees of latitude. (It can be stable closer to the equator, but it must be protected by a covering of rock and dust.)
On page 361 of "Mars: A Warmer Wetter Planet" it says (talking about the glacier like land forms in the Noachis Terra region):
"... The rare, exceptional fresh-looking fields of narrow crevasses in some of the lobate debris aprons in Argyre and Noachis Terra, however, indicate that some of these icy flows have been active, albeit weakly, within the past few decades or centuries; sublimation would have widened or subdued the crevasses if exposed for longer than that at their latitudes and with their [the rock glaciers] slope and aspects."
Read Dr Kargel's book. It has overwhelming evidence that there is a lot of ice frozen under the ground. It has persuasive evidence that some rock glaciers are still active, fed by seasonal frost build up at the head of the glacier. (Admittedly these glaciers are flowing 10,000 times slower than they do on Earth because of the lower gravity and much slower build up of ice.)
Warm regards, Rick
Hi all,
"Malin said that it was by chance Edgett spotted an image with a new crater and recalled a similar view taken years earlier by the MGS orbiter. Their subsequent survey found the new craters, which range in diameter from seven feet (two meters) to 486 feet (148 meters), and an average impact rate of about 12 per year."
My guess would be that most of these 12 impacts / year will create craters less than 50 meters across. That will be enough to move the water into vapor, but it will simply frost out again.
In the book "Mars: A Warmer Wetter Planet" by Jeffry S. Kargel, ISBN 1-85233-568-8, (c) 2004, he makes a strong argument for active rock glaciers (fed by winter frosts) on Mars. Mars is dry because it is cold, not because there is not a lot of water on it.
Thanks Grypd for posting such an interesting link!
Warm regards, Rick
The problem with Veus is that its too close to the Sun. .... . I think increasing the distance from the Sun to 140,000,000 km would be enough. The minimum distance of Earth is 147,085,800. We don't want the two planets getting too close!
Hi all, Tom.
When Venus got to be 112,500,000 km from the sun it would be in a 4:3 resonance with Earth and then it would start having STRONG effects on Earth's orbit.
Also this would require a gigantic restructuring of the solar system to move that much mass. For example, the oort cloud starts around 50,000 AU. They orbit at a speed of 0.1 km / s relative to the sun. This does not sound too bad, we only have to give them a 100 m/s delta vee and the Sun's gravity will do all the rest. However, it will take this comet 60,000 years to fall into the inner solar system from that distance (1/2 of the typical orbital period for comet thought to be coming from that part of the oort belt.)
I estimate that you will want to give the comets a mid course correction of around 5 m / s in 55,000 years to make sure that they miss Earth and go to the right area of the solar system. Spend another 5 m / s over the next 5,000 years to guide the comet where you want it.
Now you are talking momentum transfer here via gravity. From this site:
http://www.egglescliffe.org.uk/physics/ … sling.html
it shows that the comet, AT BEST, can gain double the velocity of Venus (added to its own velocity). Venus is traveling at about 17.5 km/s around the sun so the comet gains 35.1 km/s delta vee.
If the comet masses a trillion kg (a pretty small comet) this is a momentum transfer of 3.51 x 10 ^ 16 kg m/s. That sounds pretty good and is the momentum transfer equivalent to 10,300 Saturn V rockets.
Now to move Venus up to 140 M km will require increasing its orbital velocity to about 28 km / s. This is a momentum change of: 5.1 x 10 ^ 28 kg m / s. This is 1.5 trillion such comets.
Now if you want to get out to the near oort cloud, you can get there in about 60,000 years with a delta vee of 40 km / s. If you want to get there faster, you need a LOT more detal vee. I am assuming that these comets each want a delta vee of 100 m/s to move them into the inner solar system. This is about 29,550 Saturn V's worth of momentum. (Of course you have to move those 29,550 rockets from Earth to each of those 1.5 trillion comets.)
When you have done this you have the heaviest cometary bombardment of the inner solar system, from any time in the history of the sun, only 55 millenia away.
Now you may suggest that in a few hundred years we may have fusion drives and the like, but my point is that planets are big. Really big. I am sorry to say that I think your plan to move Venus is impractical.
I am not trying to make fun of you Tom. Your idea is perfectly possible in principle. However, on a realistic basic, it just won't happen. For that much energy, it is a lot cheaper to go to other solar systems and find worlds that are easier to terraform than Venus.
Sorry to be such a wet blanket.
Warm regards, Rick.
Titan is the best candidate - yes. It is not extremely cold - the solar radiation intensity / solar factor is only 10 times lower than at Earth.
Hi Everyone, Karov.
According to my book the Semi-major axis for Saturn is 9.539 AU. The insolation is an inverse square law so I calculate that the solar radiation is 1 / 90.99 times that on Earth.
Beyond the Asteriod belt, the light from the sun starts getting too low for plants. We will need artificial light for our gardens on Titan and that will require a LOT of energy. (Of course if they have He3 mining of the outer solar system then people will have energy to burn...)
Warm regards, Rick
Our fictional Mars needs a standard of currency. Like you said, Iron ore is everywhere, so it’s too common to be valued. Limestone is valuable, but only as a consumable. So it wouldn’t make a very good coined currency. I guess I’m just emphasizing a portion of my original question. Could ores such as gold, silver, and/or copper be mined on mars? If so, would they be rare enough to be valued, yet still common enough to be circulated as money?
Again, thank you.
Hello all,
I think the following will be in short supply on Mars:
- Skilled labor,
- High tech devices from Earth (likely for a long time after colonization),
- Fluorine (they need it by the mega-tonne for terraforming),
- Energy (a cold world and building infrastructure is energy intensive),
- Anything Earth wants (including strategic metals).
I agree for day to day transactions a credit card is fine. But let us say you are a small, starved state that wants to issue currency for your people. However you have a big debt getting set up and your credit is not great. You might issue coinage backed by claims on Uranium ores or a hoard of metals, etc.
The everyone one uses credit assumption is based on a wide spread or world economy but your fictional Mars may not have that situation. (Having lots of outlaw domes owing money and a bit desperate would likely make a more interesting ficton.)
Warm Regards, Rick.