New Mars Forums

I assumed that the mealworm larvae would be fed solely on wheat bran, although from what I read other grains could work.

I agree that many insects such as aphids, termites, mosquitoes, locusts, etc., are deleterious for people and human activities, and even many of the good ones such as bees and mealworms have their downsides. They, like all animals (and indeed heterotrophs such as fungi) consume food otherwise intended for human consumption, defecate, and bees can sting. However, with respect to animals in particular, insects are advantageous in that they are far more efficient than conventional livestock in providing food and other such products as silk and shellac and have lower start-up costs. Their main disadvantage is population control, which I guess could be solved by introducing insectivores such as spiders, using insecticides, or farming them in separate buildings from the main habs. I think it's beyond dispute that the early Martians will be vegetarian if not outright vegan, but I think that when/if animals are introduced the first ones should be insects.

For pathogens, I looked it up and saw that the lesser mealworm can transmit some infections but is a separate species from the one I analyzed. http://animals.mom.me/health-concerns-w … 97600.html says that mealworm larvae can transmit such diseases as E. coli, Staph, Flu, and Salmonella. While serious, those are all manageable and some of them have vaccines for the Martians. Having said of all of that, I noticed that mealworms have another problem in that they damage insulation. So I guess that particular species isn't quite the best. Oh well

According to http://pollinator.org/list-of-pollinated-food, birds are known only to pollinate bananas, papayas, and nutmeg, while bees can pollinate many types of fruits and alfalfa. Bats can pollinate Avocado, a potentially useful fat source for Martians. However, none of the plants on the list are crucial for a mission to Mars.

Volatiles (mostly water, but other such things as H2 and clathrates) are not native to the terrestrial planet zone of the Solar System; as the terrestrial planets form they are initially dry. Volatiles are brought in from farther out of the solar system, such as asteroids and comets, hitting the planets. There is evidence for liquid water on Earth at 4.5 Ga, and the late heavy bombardment concluded at ~3.9 Ga. Mars is a planetary embryo that never fully accreted like Earth did so it's likely that it never experienced the late heavy bombardment at such a scale but the process is likely much the same. If there was an oxygen-rich atmosphere on Mars at 4 Ga it would essentially rule out any Earth-to-Mars panspermia as Earth life didn't evolve aerotolerance until around 2.5 Ga, although Mars-to-Earth panspermia would be possible, and could if existent plausibly account for the oxygenic capabilities of cyanobacteria. (That cyanobacteria would have under this theory acquired its oxygenic photosynthesis powers from absorbing a source is supremely ironic given that some cyanobacteria themselves would later be absorbed by plants and be reduced to chloroplasts.)

Bones are plausible as they originally evolved as mainly a phosphate source, which all organisms need.

The only surefire law in Biology is that of Evolution by Natural Selection. RobertDyck gives a good overview about how life would be quite different on Mars. I myself believe that the vast majority of life on Mars would be prokaryotic like on Earth, especially given the frigid and anoxic conditions of the planet, which both make complex life very unlikely, even in the past given that complex life is less than a billion years old on Earth, at which times Mars was perhaps what it was today.

Another thing we can do with human waste is use methanogens on it to produce methane, but that comes at a cost of not being able to then use that waste as compost. (EDIT: We'd also have to do it in an oxygen-free environment, but I guess that's doable with a septic tank.) I guess it would be up to the city to decide what proportion of waste to use to produce methane and what proportion to use as compost.

Human excrement is too "hot" (i.e., has proportionally too much Nitrogen) for use as compost and unless early Martians have a really high-fiber diet might burn the plants. Same thing with the dung of horses and poultry, making ruminant feces ideal, albeit very rare on Mars. Perhaps we could use toilet paper to increase the Carbon content to make fecal matter compost-worthy.

True, which is why A.A. analysis would likely be a second-level test after chirality is determined but before anything crazy like PCR testing for genetics to determine relationships, if life is indeed found.

It's a bit complicated; even though the (simplified) equation for photosynthesis gives a 1:1 molar ratio for CO2 and O2, net oxygen production via photosynthesis is quite small per plant since most of it gets respired by the plant itself. (Respiration is just photosynthesis in reverse.)

Net Primary Productivity (technically the production of organic carbon, but duly converted since there's a 6:1 molar ratio between oxygen and organic carbon produced it works just as well) on land ranges from less than 48 mol O2/m^2 in the deserts up to more than 600 mol/m^2 in the tropical rainforests, with a typical value of ~360 mol/m^2 in the temperate parts of North America, Europe, and China according to http://www.globalcarbonproject.org/scie … IGURE6.htm. The concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere is currently around 400 ppm according to https://www.co2.earth/. Duly converted and spread across Earth's surface area, this gives around 1,960 mol/m^2 of CO2.

So assuming all of the CO2 is used by land plants this gives a ratio of 0.02-0.31 mol O2 ultimately produced by plants per mol CO2, or 0.18 for a temperate climate. On Earth the ultimate amount of O2 that is produced per CO2 is even lower since much of what's given by plants is respired by animals, fungi, or other organisms that don't make their own food(what are known as "heterotrophs"), but on Mars this could perhaps be controlled.

I'm all for gender-neutral restrooms to avoid this whole hubbub. If I'm not mistaken the only functional difference is that the gents' has urinals. Most small restaurants already have only one restroom, shouldn't be that big a switch.

I'm going to be a pollwatcher on Tuesday for the Democratic primary of a local state representative campaign my good friend is a field director for (I don't live in the district). I'll be working from 5 in the morning to the early evening handing out palm cards and assessing the ballot boxes for fraud among other things.

"Settlement" seems the best IMO, as it doesn't conjure up any major negative historical occurrences to a white American mind (I'm aware those in other countries and of other races might feel differently) and in fact perhaps conjures up positive emotions of expansion and the frontier. "Colony" has a really loaded history but can be used with caution, "plantation" has a similarly loaded history without any benefit, "base" suggests something uncivilian, small, and impermanent, as does "outpost" and "camp". "City"/"town"/"village" are perfectly good terms to describe the size of the settlement, but say nothing of its relation to Earth.

With respect to transgendered people one must take into account the difference between sex (i.e., the biological part of maleness/femaleness) and gender (i.e., the psychological part of masculinity/femininity). For most people these things correlate (these people are known as "cisgendered"), but for some people they don't, and a biological man may genuinely feel like he's a woman, and vice versa. This feeling is known as "gender dysphoria". Note that this is psychological rather than sociological; being a man and enjoying something that society happens to consider feminine (such as wearing dresses, for example) does not make him experience gender dysphoria or be transgendered (in the dress example, it makes him a transvestite), only genuinely feeling like one is a member of the opposite sex counts as gender dysphoria. Contrary to popular belief, being transgender is NOT in of itself a mental disorder. Gender dysphoria is a mental disorder, and transitioning (either socially or physically via hormone therapy) is the treatment.

This is to the best of my knowledge, and if I'm wrong about anything please let me know.

This whole idea is quite silly, but fortunately I doubt it would go any further than many other space plans since Apollo.

I can see the colony operating much like the British Empire/Commonwealth, with a Governor being able to in theory (although perhaps not often in practice, especially as the colony/settlement matures) overrule an elected legislature, especially for a planetary government, and such an arrangement eventually evolving into a Westminster-type thing.

As for municipal government, I was thinking something along the lines of a town meeting like they have in New England, with councilmen/aldermen/selectmen being elected for day-to-day administration and meetings occasionally called for major policy decisions.