New Mars Forums

Yet another test

Another test

My interest in this subject was piqued when I read an article about the use of windmills on Mars to produce energy. Traditionally, most people think that either solar power or nuclear power is the way forward, at least for initial colonies and manned exploration missions (geothermal and so on would require a more extensive engineering and surveying effort).

However, there is of course a certain stigma attached to nuclear power and unfortunately should you ever find yourself in a dust storm, solar power isn't going to do you much good. The NASA scientists are advocating the use of a dual power generation system in which solar power is used when there are clear skies and wind power during dust storms.

Why not use wind power all the time? Because on Mars, you need 30 metres per second windspeed to produce electricity and you only get that during dust storms. This strikes me as an elegant solution.

Personally, I believe that nuclear power is probably the most efficient system and in any case, nuclear power is pretty safe. What do other people think?

New Mars is still a young website and I think it always takes a while for such sites to get to a critical mass where there are always discussions going on. However, I'm fairly happy with the growth we're experiencing right now; over the past few weeks we've had about one new member join a day and I expect that to slowly increase as word gets out.

As for speeding things up, well, there are a few things that could be done. There could be wider publicity about the website through various means - the New Mars forums are already the official Mars Society forums, but there has yet to be a mention of this in the MS email newsletter - but that isn't such a big deal.

(By the way - word of mouth is good! Tell all your friends about New Mars! )

There could also be wider publicity in other general Internet news websites - such as Slashdot, Metafilter, Memepool and so on - but I'm of two minds as to whether being mentioned on them would be beneficial. I would rather that New Mars had a good core of members and contributors before we let the floodgates open and I'm in no particular hurry to see the website explode.

Case in point: Metafilter is one of the web's most active collaborative weblog/news/discussion websites. It's been online for probably a couple of years and it started off quite slowly. Right now, it has 12000+ members and is experiencing difficulties with too much traffic. I envisage roughly the same growth curve for New Mars, as long as we can keep people interested.

I do have a few ideas for expanding New Mars when the time comes, including creating a member-run weblog that will keep track of the latest Mars news, along with commentary, and of course we could always do with more articles.

Clark, I believe you have some problem in making relative judgements with respect to the Moon and Mars, and I also think that you're trying to confuse the issue.

I don't know how much gravity plants need - I'll admit that, but I do know that they grow significantly worse in zero-G and I would hypothesise that since they evolved under one G, that's the gravity in which they grow best; hence Mars will be more conducive to growth than the Moon. Yes, a complete rotating space station has even better gravity than Mars - but then we're comparing the Moon and Mars, not space stations.

Yes, Mars has zero biomass. I never said it had any. I said it had plant nutrients, by which I am referring to phosphorus, potassium, calcium, zinc, copper, nitrogen and other such elements, all of which are in far smaller concentrations (if at all) on the Moon than on Mars. Mars has no biomass, but at least it has the potential to have biomass - the Moon, on the other hand, doesn't even have the basic ingredients.

Mars is irradiated by radiation; but far less than the Moon is, because it is further away and has a thin atmosphere.

You can't dismiss the fact the extremely important differences in light exposure between Mars and the Moon just because they share some similarities - the very fact that the Moon has a fortnight long night is clearly a huge minus point for growing plants there. You'll need pressurized greenhouses on both the Moon and Mars - you'll also need protective measures against radiation - but the measures you'll have to take on the Moon will be magnitudes of times greater than those on Mars. They don't equate.

The Moon's plants will certainly need artificial lighting; Mars plants will as well, if dust storms occur, but certainly for far less time and energy than the Moon plants.

(Incidentally, Martian sunlight levels are only 43% that of Earth and the Moon. This is not really a problem since light is rarely the limiting factor for plant growth; instead, carbon dioxide is).

I don't see why humans would be able to provide 'more than enough carbon dioxide for the plants' on the Moon - the carbon has to come from somewhere (since that's what plants are made out of - carbon) and it can't all come from us.

I honestly don't think that the Moon is a cost-effective training ground for Mars; the gravity isn't that similar, the space suits will be different, the temperatures will be completely different (Mars isn't that cold, really) and as I have stressed repeatedly, Mars does have resources. You can make fuel on Mars.

I don't know where you get the figures for robots being better for the next 10-20 years. Humans aren't required for mapping Mars - we've already mapped it to an extremely fine detail already, and we've examined the apparent water channels. But searching for life and fossils? There isn't anything better to do that than a human, until we can make a robot that is as intelligent and versatile as one.

As it happens, I do think that having humans in Mars orbit would be a great idea; it would be less expensive than landing humans and less dangerous. It would be a good precursor mission to a human landing. However, it has a few problems. Firstly, while the lag time is reduced the humans still have to work with robots, which simply will not be as versatile as humans. Secondly, the type of spacecraft that would be used for this sort of mission would be significantly different to one which would be used to land on Mars - it would be a one-off, and thus probably not cost-effective if you're considering a sustained programme of human landings on Mars using identical hardware.

'Actively pursuing commerical interests on the Moon' is not the same as 'planning to send humans to the Moon.' Aside from the frequent fairytales that I read about a Hilton Moon hotel, the most concrete private Moon venture that I've seen is akin to letting people drive a little robot around on the surface. If tourists do go to the Moon in the next 20 years, it will be in the same capacity as they go to the ISS now - staying in government research labs, being few and far between, and paying extremely high amounts of money for the privelege. So, no, I wouldn't say that any of us who aren't scientists or astronauts would have a chance of going at all.

It's interesting that you say that the Mars Direct Plan is 'getting stuff up in space and fuelled in space' - you must be reading a different plan to mine, because according to my copy of The Case for Mars, no orbital facilities of any kind are required. And I've never seen Zubrin - or indeed anyone else - justify going to Mars by having a Martian colony support a Lunar colony.

I don't particularly care if a private enterprise wants to put a hotel up in space, as long as it isn't taxpayers money. Indeed, I wish them the best of luck.

I must say that I'm taken aback by your indifference on whether we discover life on Mars. The implications are staggering; not just scientifically, but also for the religious and philosophical fields. If we did find life there, might it have come from Earth? Or vice versa? Or is it original to Mars? If there's life on Mars, our next door neighbour, chances are that there is life elsewhere in the universe, and perhaps intelligent life. And did God create life on Mars? some might ask. It is a supremely important question, whether there is life on Mars, and well worth the money.

The structure of DNA would have seemed to have been frivolous to most people when it was discovered, but look at the benefits we have now. Similarly, study of Martian life could shed light on our own origins.

What if we discover no life? That's equally interesting, especially in light of our belief that in the past Mars had an environment conducive to life. Perhaps life is far more rare and random than we really think.

Why would people want to go to Mars? You've heard many arguments here, and I will profess that despite my firm belief that it is worth going to Mars for the science alone, I do have a 'romantic' desire to see humans there. I believe that, yes, there is a chance to create a new civilization there, and more importantly I think that the conditions in which that civilization will grow in, isolated from Earth, will give people the chance to create something new and better than what we have now. Just giving people that chance - even if I don't get to take part - is worth any amount of money. To me, at least.

To deal with your second post:

I would ask you why you think, from an engineering standpoint, it would require at least a decade to create a spacecraft that utilized artificial G. What, exactly, is so difficult about it? Consider that we managed to travel to the Moon less than a decade after first getting into space.

No-one really thinks that you would use a CELSS for a mission to Mars; right now the technology is too prone to failure to use. Instead, food stores would have to be used for a trip. They'd take up some mass, but they're foolproof.

The Case for Mars states that in-situ propellant production should be used. It also states that the Earth Return Vehicle should be fully fueled and operational before the humans even leave Earth - and also that in case that ERV fails, another should be sent at the same time as the humans as a backup.

Sure, we don't know where liquid water is on Mars - not that it matters, since in-situ propellant production requires it. It only requires CO2 - which we know for a fact is in Mars' atmosphere and can be mined from it - and hydrogen, which you take with you. ISPP has been tested by Zubrin on Earth and is also being researched extensively by NASA.

Making a Mars EVA suit will surely be difficult; however, very little research has been done on the subject yet and I have confidence in NASA and private companies to come up with a solution using the latest plastics and fabrics.

It would be nice to have nuclear propulsion to send people to Mars, but we won't have such a system for a while and so we'll just have to make do with traditional chemical rockets; it makes the journey longer but certainly not impossible or even that much more onerous.

While the Moon's potential for providing resources to orbital factories is undeniable, it's important to quantitatively assess the relative costs and benefits in this; it's one thing to talk about 'resource differences' and another to realise that it's just not possible to grow plants on the Moon at all (thus necessitating significant resupply costs).

Probably the point that most people see about going to Mars first is that in the long run, maintaining a colony on Mars will be much cheaper as it could attain self-sufficiency with less difficulty than one on Mars, and thus more science could be done. However, I understand that that's not what you're getting at.

Personally, I believe that more valuable science can be conducted by humans cost-effectively on Mars than on the Moon - for one thing, the signal lag is a lot less to the Moon. I don't see the Moon as having much value apart from being:

a) A good tourist destination
b) A good place to put telescopes on
c) Somewhere to launch materials to orbiting factories*
d) Closer, and thus much safer

and of course these properties aren't, to me, as valuable as those that Mars has in terms of self-sufficiency and scientific interest. Yet I will concede that the safety factor and tourism aspects will appear much stronger to others and I wouldn't be surprised if we had a base on the Moon before we had a base on Mars.

*That said, there are extremely good arguments to be made for mining asteroids, which have even less gravity and far more concentrated and valuable resources than the Moon.

Absolutely wonderful! Thanks for that, Sax

There hasn't been too much discussion of the impact of discovering (or not discovering) life on Mars would be for the decision to terraform. Joel McKinnon has a good look at these issues in his article about Martian life - I'd advise people to check it out and voice their thoughts here.

It might be useful to have a look at the new Life to Mars Foundation website - not much information, but it has got some interesting descriptions of alternative missions they are considering to Translife (which seem to be far more interesting, personally speaking).

Not much information about the Foundation itself though; aside from Elon Musk I'm not sure who else is involved.

While I was writing up this issue's new editorial, it struck me that what with the interesting discussion going on in the forums about the constitution and terraformation, it'd be quite useful to have a weekly or fortnightly summary of the more active or thoughtful threads in the forum.

So, if anyone is interested in doing this job - writing a summary of the current active and interesting threads (not all of them) on a regular basis, please adrian@marssociety.org.uk with a sample article that summarises the threads right now. I'm not looking for a long summary - 500 words max, although that's only a guideline. If it happens that you have something interesting to say that's longer than that, fine, and equally if you think that you can do the job more concisely, no problem.

Actually, I would see service in the Duma as something like jury duty, but only moreso; a civic duty, if you will. Of course, if those who are chosen have extenuating circumstances, e.g. severe illness, I'm sure they would be excused. But not in other parts.

I think perhaps you are assuming too much here, in that Mars will be an identical society to America or other western nations. If we look at nations such as Israel, where military service is compulsory, or the Netherlands, where wages are much more level than in the USA, the idea of 'government duty' is much more natural.

I have never stated that a sample of 500 citizens would be the same as having the entire population vote, statistically, and indeed in any case I believe that the Duma, in its current form, would be much less powerful than the Senate; I feel you give the Duma too little credit and the executive committee too much.

The 500 citizens who become members of the Duma meet once every year, that is correct, but they meet for as long as they require in order to conduct their business. They would each have an administrative staff and more resources and time available to them to make the relevant decisions than anyone else on the planet - as I said, it is their job to make these decisions, and it is the job of their assistants to ensure that they are as well informed as possible. It is simply not possible for all members of the population to be quite as well informed as the Duma, unless every single adult on Mars was given the same time and resources - which of course is not feasible.

The executive council picks half of the constitutional courts and 1/3 of the GEC, not 'half of the courts'. The EC would never be a puppet of the Duma, for the reasons I have made clear before - it's illogical to believe that the Duma would be some sort of homogeneous community with identical opinions. Yes, they are only 500 people, but by and large they will reflect the opinions of the general population.

I will admit that you have to put a certain amount of trust in the Duma to make their decisions for you, but you will also have to bear in mind that it's entirely possible that you yourself could become a member and since the sample is random across the world population, yes, I would say that it is representative of the world population to quite a high degree.

In addition, I would not be surprised if the definition of 'settlement' is altered so that the world is split up into constituencies so that all Martian citizens could vote for members of the Senate. But this is of course something to be debated, however I think that the limit on settlement size was place more to limit the total number of senators rather than to limit voting to large cities.

I think what KSR is trying to achieve with the Duma is a twofold difference from what you suggest, in having the world population elect the executive council.

Firstly, he is trying to press home the possible benefits of government by jury duty, thus emphasising an 'average' citizen's involving in planetary affairs and showing that even your average Joe on the street can affect change. This could well bring about a new atmosphere of civil responsibility.

Secondly, the idea of an informed electorate is being pressed here. Assuming that the entire world population is taking part in voting for the Senate anyway, having a highly informed Duma who have the time and resources to commit to making an intelligent decision on whom to elect to the executive committee (as opposed to some of the more irresponsible voters that I'm sure we all know of personally) is possibly preferable to the alternative. It does require a certain amount of trust in your fellow citizens but as I have said before, you do need to give credit to their intelligence.

I put my faith in 59 million of my other UK citizens for every election, and I know for a fact that many of them will make extremely ill-informed decisions. I would rather put my faith in 500 well informed citizens.

So I do agree that there is a need for worldwide representation of some kind, and I do think that the election of the Senate should be altered to that regard. However, I also feel that the Duma has its benefits and should not be written off quite yet. Indeed, it is already clear that governments set policy by opinion polls, which in fact are startlingly accurate of the population opinion - whether or not they admit it or it is democratic.

I strongly suspect that there are many efforts to get Sept 11th recognised as some kind of national holiday, both at the grassroots and highest levels of the USA; probably the best thing for you to do is to join up with one of the larger organisations pushing for this.