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Read Red, Green, and Blue Mars by Kim Stanley Robinson. It has a lot of ideas for a martian system (that hopefully would work on earth too), and has some good ideas for terraforming.
1) There is no means of getting a human there with out a craft that can produce a gravitational effect, which has got to be years away before anything like 'tether' or rotating technology can be applied to a space ship.
2) Mars can never hold down an atmosphere, so even if a new one where some how created it would only seep away like the old one did!
3) There is not enough magnetic field to protect the planet anyway. Since its core was somehow compromised all those millions of years ago (I like the idea that the core partially blew out and produced the giant volcano oplympus mons in the process)
Tim
1: see antimatter, fusion, and fission propulsion. Now you are right, although spinning ships might be possible.
2: I disagree. Look at Titan: 1.5 bar atmos. (earth ~1), 1/7 gravity. Venus, same g, 95 bar atmos.
3: The ozone layer that we would have to make might help with that. But the core thing is interesting. Could you tell me more about it?
-jif
but first i would like to point out this pointless dickering. The SS is too expensive...No looke at these developement costs for anything else...no you cant do that... you all get it
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For my idea: Its somewhat simple. 5 Shuttle solid boosters, in an X configuration. 1 makes it to orbit. you add a capsule in the middle of 6 to carry things up. You put the fittings in the then-empty 5th solid booster that made it to orbit. Pictures of the designs in the next post.
This seems correct as far as I can tell. But what about alternate energy sources, such as solar energy, solar wind energy, and others. Also, energy (some, if not a lot) could be harvested from the reaction itself. The mercury wont be that cold. I plan as using that for the radiators, as well as for the fuel.
On another note- does anyone know how much mercury would be needed for a to-and-back trip to Mars?
Finally, would there be any way of using some of the high energy gamma rays to give the protons 26 GeV of energy?
For my last question (really the last), I am thinking of changing the fuel from antiprotons to antielectrons. The only problem is that I can't find any sources to find out a way to prodouce antielectrons without radioactive decay. How can they be made?
Sorry for all of the questions.
-jif
OK. The proton is zapped with the 26 GeV of x-ray lasers (are these possible, if not I'm scrapping the idea), then magnetically brought into contact with :!: Mercury :!: instead of water. When it comes into contact with the Mercury, the spew of particles comes out. The antiproton finds some Mercury and annihilates with one of its protons. The Mercury becomes GOLD(possibilities), which is promptly blasted out of the back of the spacecraft.
it might be the most dangerous ship ever, though. Just think, Antimatter, Gamma Rays, X-Ray lasers, Mercury, lead, some stable, and some radioactive (possibly spontaneously fissioning) gold. Lots of shielding will be needed(that's where the lead comes in.)
As previously stated, there are two main problems with antimatter. Storage and synthesys in large numbers. To overcome the storage problem, there are two things you can do: Super strong natural magnets, and creation of the Antimatter on the ship. To create antimatter on a ship, just zap it with 26 GeV of X-ray lasers. For extremely strong natural magnets, ionized carbon might do. However, the A-matter has to be made somewhere, and the xray lasers are the best available way. Just 1 question: Would they work? (the lasers, not turning matter into a-matter with lasers.)
I wonder if antimatter could be used for propulsion in much the same way as nuclear weapons could be used to accelerate spacecraft. The explosions that antimatter could make when it comes in contact with normal matter are probably greater than the explosions of nuclear weapons. Could the antimatter explosions be directed at the back of the spacecraft just like the orion starship would have it done? Please reply and tell me what you think of this idea.
There is a way to do this. You turn a Proton into an antiproton WITH LASERS in a way that can be done on your average interstellar/interplanetary craft. The Antiprotons are accellerated into water, creating fast moving NH2, a few pions, and a few gamma rays.