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Hi all,
As an "imported" american in the way to have triple nationality, I don't worry much about the republican's victory. That won't change a lot of things in this old planet. That's why I'd like to see a new civilization starting over on Mars. My only concern is that more money here in the US will go for the army, maybe in an expensive orbital system defense and less money will be spend for research and space exploration, in what extend, that's the question.
Hi Robert,
Yes, cost matters of course. But there is also politic. Russians have been pissed off by the story about their tourist cosmonaut being coldly received in the ISS. They also probably feel that, irrespective of the russian or european money and efforts engaged in the iss, the ISS remains in total US control. So why to invest in it ?
Maybe the europeans have plans for an European SS, smaller, like the size of Mir.
Anyway, a small RCV for 4 people would be a useful advance of course, but for Mars, Shuttle C or equivalent is requested.
We need to be clear. NO scientific project needs such a HLV. Only Men to Mars needs that. Here is the problem: sending men to Mars is not scientifically justified. Robots on Mars can do all the science, better cheaper, safer. Sending men to Mars is more about the humanity fate or politic considerations. It's not a scientific absolute request. Now, what's the goal of NASA, science or sending flags to other planets ? It's mixt, 80% science, 20% politic. "Science" doesn't need a HLV to send 100 tons to Mars and 20% politic is not enough to do it either.
But we, at the Mars society, we need something like shuttleC.
In my opinion the solution can partly comes from the private sector when companies realize they can make money with Mars. Maybe we can interest the private sector by sending to Mars light, relatively cheap probes, like gliders, polar cap penetrators etc, to make some sciences but also a lot of "exploration/fun" science like in "discovery channel".
Imagine TV channels broadcasting a glider over Valles Marineris, almost like in "69". In that respect, pathfinder was a success. As the public get more interested, the private funding increases and finally a big constructor decides to build a HLV to send Men there... the big adventure starts.
Hi,
From the transfer of energy to biology in 0.38g there is a big jump. I really think that a transfer of energy is a key to Mars colonization. With energy you can do everything, and first, you can go to Mars.
I read that it would be possible to transfer gravitational energy from Jupiter to Mars with a shuttle asteroid/mass, which in return would then decelerate Jupiter and accelerate when approaching Mars...or something like that...Mr Robert Dick will correct me If I am wrong. Anyway, the idea was to use the Jupiter energy field to accelerate asteroids or planets and then transfer that energy to another planet or asteroid. Nothing different here of what do the space probes en route to the stars, except, for example, that the energy released could be used to move distant NH3/icy comets from the kuiper's belt to a Mars crossing orbit and deliver substantial amount of NH3/H20 to Mars, (as said in the KSR trilogy).
Also, maybe that gravitational energy could be transformed/transfered to a remnant Martian magnetic field and ignite a putative Martian iron core to spin, re-creating a magnetic field for Mars. This maybe trough a gravitational resonnance between a Mars vibrational mode (of the crust, iron core ?)at the asteroid passage. That would heat Mars a little...But maybe all this is too dangerous and would destabilize the Mars inclinaison axis on the long term. However, I like the idea to pull the distant icy comets to a Mars crossing orbit.
Hi all,
I want to comment on ArianeV, it seems that this launcher is dedicaced almost always to communication satellites, Earth observation satellites, mainly for commercial purposes and for any country willing to pay.
Sometimes, an European Research Organization has just enough money to pay for half a payload and so they send a scientific mission but rarely. That launcher is very competitive but it doesn't seem to be used much for space exporation.
This is in contrast to an Heavy Launch Vehicle, like shuttleC, nicely described by Robert. If a shuttle C is built, this is to do something specifically requiring heavy payload in low orbit, like ISS, but does the ISS even needs such huge payload NOW ? not sure, or it is for Mars. Luckily, I am sure that as time passes, the technology for that HLV will be slowly transfered to private compagnies which will give it a try. There is always hope.
The Mars Logo, with the astronaut in front of a green house/biosphere, actually contains that Mars greek symbol, although not obvious at first sight. I lilke more that logo even if it is a little bit too "cartoon". This as opposed to the Mars tricolor rectangular flag which is too reminiscent of nationalism in my opinion and really too "boring".
But a sign without any Eart reference ? Why should we get rid off everything from Earth ? not everything is negative here on Earth. Just think about the great genius that the occidental civilization has produced. We should not erase or forget that positive past. We are not smarter than the Newton, Descartes, Euler, Poincare, Nietzsche, Darwin, Lamarck, Galileo, Copernic, Einstein, Planck, Feinman....the list is so long. In many biographies, you can read the amazed author sincerely asking "but from where the hell did he got that surhuman/quasi-divin idea" like if their ideas were more intuition or divination than genius. They remind us that there is more in man than just man. Each time those great minds enlighted us a little bit more, each time they help us to move away from the bestiality of our origin and to get closer where we want to go now: on Mars. Please, do not erase that great heritage. It is the best of humanity. We should not fall into that obscurantist idea of a "pure virginal start from scrap without any Earth baggage" .
Allright, the New nars forum's logo is fine since it is just a forum logo and I am not the owner of that forum after all. But for the flag, i too understand it as a sign of terraforming and/or of "The" trilogy , but I just find it not very aesthetic and not very imaginative. In addition, rectangular flags like that are very reminiscent of army and nationalisms.
But if those 3 colors have to be kept, which I understand because they symbolise terraforming, why not to use them combined or INSIDE a more symbolistic logo such as the greek Martian symbol. Do not underestimate the evocative power of symbols. I think that the current Mars Society flag lacks that evocative power.
Let's face it, if you see a greek (or roman) martian symbol right now in the street, you might think it's to indicate a gay organization or people or that it is for men symbol and not women. I guess it's the main reason why it has not been choosed. I think it's a mistake to abandon that sign because of those reasons, because the ideologic content is lost and that this sign has just to be adapted.
Yes, I confused the tricolor flag with the New Mars logo, just on top of this web page.
Now, I found the Mars society logo great, I like it. But the tricolor flag...hum...it is not a great invention. Why do we have to like it ? why do we have to copy that particular type of flags ?
If that flag is supposed to represent Mars, then the Japanese flags fits better than a tricolor flag. Who choosed the flag BTW ?
Hi all,
I think that the Mars Society flag with the blue and red crescents is not great. It is too reminiscent of the islamic flag. Mars colonization is mostly and first an occidental idea. Are we afraid or ashamed of our occidental cultural heritage ? Why not to use the occidental greek symbol for MArs, or a symbolic variation of that sign to spare the ultrasensitive feminist organizations sensitivity.
To add on that topic, I ,too, think that terrorming has little to do with sciences, it is more about humankind fate. I am a scientist who think that sciences on Mars and Mars colonization are different topics. BTW, NASA, ESA etc should focus on sciences. Colonization is the bussiness of people, not necesseraly scientist, and in my opinion will be done from a private funding base. In that context, I think that the sample return from ESA is a mistake: too expensive and what's the goal exactly: geology, life traces search ? that cannot be done in situ with robots with much less money ?
I think that the ESA's goal is a mixture of technological demonstration attempt and sciences. If Europe wants to invest in Mars long term colonization, fine, then EU should design long term projects inside the appropriate organization: why not the international MArs Society ?
First step could be an orbiting Communication Network, then In situ Propellant/life support test systems...
about the regolith being not fertile: sure it is not, but not more unfertile than was the terran soil 3.5 billions years ago. Microorganisms made the job on earth, then primitive fungus, moss, ferns. The process on earth took millions of years because it was only driven by random genetic variation, contingency and natural selection.
Now, here on earth, we can reproduce this "evolutive" path for the martian regolith at higher speed, because we know more and more the physical and chemical conditions on mars, we can reproduce, here on earth, the martian conditions.
I have suggested to do it this way:
Take an enclosed chamber, such as a batometric tank, and introduce a low level ecological terran biotope, in its NORMAL conditions, such as artic sand, tropical soil, marine sand, desert rocks with fungus and lichens, soil from temperate regions etc.
Slowly switch the conditions in the tank to Mars conditions, by removing alittle bit of tank stuff and introducing reconstituted martian regolith and atmosphere, slow down temperature and pressure etc. The changes have to be very slow and small, each time the ecosystem has to be able to adapt, genetically and ecologically, to the new conditions and reach a new equilibrium. The adaptation of the new ecosystem to each little switch can be helped by introducing vector virus, bacterial plasmids or just raw DNA*. Those vectors would help to shuffle the information content in all the ecosystem by providing additional way to exchange genetic information between the different bacterial strains and the primitive eucaryotes interacting in the ecosystem.
In a time scale of several years, all the original ecosystem could be switch to conditions very similar to Mars conditions, maybe not as tough, but close to it and so, the "martian soil" obtained in that tank is fully colonizated by adapted organisms and can be used as a stater kit to colonize and fertilize martian soil ALMOST in situ (i.e. in a tanted slightly pressurized, slightly warmed environnment ) on Mars and without any additional work.
Ecosystems from different origin in Earth (thermal vent, antartic soil, halophilic ecosystem etc) will evolve differently in a tank, but they will all reach a final adaptative niche compatible with martian-like conditions and they will probably have different potentials to evolve further in real martian conditions. Thus, by using those different starter kit on Mars we increase the biodiversity potential and their chance to evolve further, maybe also to resume the evolution of putative primitive martian microorganisms and give them a new chance to participate of the great adventure of life. If the ecosystem is robust, it can probably compensate for unknown local conditions on Mars.
*it has been shown that bacterial populations, when submitted to an environnmental change, are more easily prone to change because:
1) Their genetic code become less stable, in part because their repair machinery is inhibited. Mutations accumulate, thus mutants or variants also appear more frequently, some are more adapted to new conditions.
2) Normally there is a genetic barrier between these different bacterial strains: a genetic mechanism forbid a high rate of genetic recombination between DNA from different species, even if the DNA sequence is close. In period of environmental instability, that barrier falls appart and the DNA with slighlty different sequences can now recombinate at a higher rate between species. That means that a bacterial strain can exchange genes and information with other bacterial strains, allowing to quickly adapt to new conditions without having to wait for the "appropriate beneficial" mutation.
3) In such environnmental change, bacteria are more prone to let foreign DNA enter their body, wich allows point 2.
4) virus can also shuffle genes from bacterial strains because of reason 1 and 2, plasmid and episomes too,
5) The point to add raw DNA rely on point 1)2)3). Billions of different random sequences synthetized by a nucleotides synthetizer, called oligonucleotides, can be addded in the soup during each envirommental switch, they will certainly ACCELERATE the processus.
5) after each switch, it is mandatory to wait for the system to stabilize again and reach a new equilibrium before the next switch, the genetic code is like a car, you don't want to blow up the engine.
Hi all,
I also agree that a Mars sample return mission, under NASA or European Eurora control, is too risky and expensive for the expected scientific return.
I said many critics in another thread in that forum against the Eurora project of Mars sample return. My main critics were:
* Aerocapture then Orbital rendez vous...It seems risky, if it fails then how to justify the huge spend of money, credibility, time and scientific ressources wasted ? Only 2 or 3 twins missions could assure the success, but it's not cost-possible.
* This is a one shot only project, It's not a good example of long term investment for Mars colonisation, better to invest in a Mars Communication Network, or in shuttleC class launcher, for that purpose.
* The cost again, it could become like the equivalent of the ISS in terms of investment, draining all the ressources from the other Mars missions.
* The little mediatic impact: 10 kg of martians soil or stones analyzed year after landings ...well, i suggest to include more fun-sciences or more science-discovery for the public in the next martian missions, like Rovers, Gliders, Penetrators, Balloons, spectacular stuff like that.
* Finally, maybe it's just as good to prepare a human mission with geologists aboard.
I want to add something to clarify my personnal views. I don't think that science is bad of course, I am a scientist myself, but I think that the interest of the public for Mars and space in general has relatively few to do with science. It is more about curiosity, dream, beauty.
Scientific discory is the first step, but now, I think it is unfair to spend millions of dollars or euros in projects that might interest primiraly only the scientists. After all, the money comes from the taxpayers, from everybody, might be a geologist, a biologist, or not a scientist.
Why not to consider this new concept:
For space and Mars exploration, includes 50% of sciences and 50% of "discovery" or "pioneering" activities, even with relatively few direct scientific return. For example, set up a microbiospere/green house with plants and a camera inside.
Now, I understand that ESA or NASA's first goal is science, but remember that american pionneers were not all scientist, the first french in Quebec were not scientist. America was not colonized for its scientific interest and Mars won't be colonized by scientist either.
from the aurora web site, first comment: the use of the "this will be done" formula like scientist are forced to use to get their grants: "...then, when this will have been demonstrated, that other thing will be done, based on that, this and this will be deduced and this and this will be done. Alternatively, this will be done if this previous thing didn't work..."
But let's read it:
"The Mars Sample Return mission.
A composite vehicle will carry into a Mars orbit both a descent module and an Earth re-entry vehicle. The descent module will carry to the surface of Mars a landing platform equipped with a sample collecting device and an ascent
vehicle. A modest landing accuracy is expected to be sufficient for a mission bringing back the first ever sample of Martian soil."
All right, until there it doesn't look too risky, but no aerobraking please, just put a big fat arianeV to cary a heavy Mars lander and return vehicle.
"The ascent vehicle will carry a small canister containing the sample into a low altitude circular Mars orbit (e.g. 150 km) for a rendezvous with the Earth re-entry vehicle."
uhoh, a rendez vous with another space craft ? risky but " A vaincre sans peril, on triomphe sans gloire" so lets see what they say:
"A Mars Sample Return mission requires a number of enabling technologies, which are not yet (or not fully) available in Europe. This concerns mainly the landing system, the ascent
vehicle, the rendezvous system in Mars orbit and the Earth re-entry vehicle/ capsule.
These technologies will be developed during two precursor Arrow missions:
Earth re-entry vehicle / capsule. The envisaged mission will use a small spacecraft in a highly elliptical Earth orbit. The vehicle will be propelled towards the Earth under conditions similar to those that would be experienced by an interplanetary return capsule. This mission is a necessary
preparatory step for the first Mars Sample Return Mission.
Mars Aerocapture demonstrator. A small mission with the specific goal of validating technology that can slow a
spacecraft and allow it to enter orbit around Mars by using friction with the planet's upper atmosphere. This will later be applied in a future Flagship mission, and eventually to the human mission elements."
So my humble opinion is that this mission is too big and endless in cost for a few rewarding. It needs some previous demonstrators missions and trials and if evrything goes well, two space ships to Mars, so:
1) Alltogether, the price of this mission WILL be huge. That the only "WILL" that I am sure. Zubrin would say that for the price you could send human (I exagerate but still).
2) It s a risky mission, are the governments ready to face a defeat after spending billions of billions on that project ? european will look ridiculous if the mission fails.
3) it's a one shot only Mars project. If you want to conquest Mars, don't put all your eggs and your money in the same bag. I would prefer many smaller projects in such a way that a failure in one wouldn't affect significantly the other.
The necessary Mars internet network would be such a long term investment. Shuttle C would be a long term valuable investment for a man mission. I dont say that the sample return mission is impossible, I just say that it is unnecessary risky. Anyway, as I said, I think millions of euros will be spent on that project, then a government following a political change in europe will find this project too risky and expensive and will decide to retire and finally to abandon the mission. And they will do well. How ridiculous the european scientist will look in front of the tax payers if the sample misses the return vehicle for example. The situation would be different if 2 or 3 such projects were set up, like for the Viking, to raise the likelyhood of success. But then the price goes up.
What about the media coverture now ? stones in a container...3 billions dollars for that, typical scientist stuff. What the public (taxpayer) wants to see, and be ready to pay, is some theater and dream: Interactive Rovers, Gliders, Penetrators, The polar cap, The great canyons, Balloons, Mens !
I don't believe a world of that X38 whatever europeen project.
Hermes has been abandonned,
the martian return sample has been abandonned,
That X38 project will be abandonned, but not without wasting a good deal of european taxpayers money before some the politician decide to give up.
There is no ambitiuous space exploration program in europe. The europeen space agency just tries to follow the NASA footstep, carefully, and without any risks, trying to repeat what NASA has done 20 years earlyer.
Hermes, the small 20 tons space shuttle, despite all the money and time spended and wasted, they gave up on that important project! In the same time they also gave up the experience and technology challenge associated with HERMES. Experience in science is inevaluable, 10 years of experience in space tecnology worth billions of dollars. I estimate the value of the JPL crew, the scientific staff and its experience (in space navigation for example) as one of the most valuable american achievment today. It's not difficult to understand, what is difficult to understand is why the ESA gave up such opportunity to build such a good experience 15 years ago.
Money is wasted in astronomical amount in europe and in france in particular: excessive "frais de bouche" for the Parisian ex mayor (now french president) for example, just enough to fund 10 thesis research, but rather to invest in science education, better invest in partying with your friends and your very private secretary right ?
Believe me, all of you in this list, there is nothing to wait from the public agencies. Mars colonization will be done on a private basis.
Of course nebob2, we need a better propulsion system once in orbit. Nuclear/plasma/ionic/hybrid, we discussed everything in the forums here. But first, the problem before everything, is to send big masses in low orbit. Think in terms of cost-efficiency. With ShuttleC you can send a 50 tons nuclear/plasma engine in space, whitout it, you need 2 or 3 regular shuttle missions which already cost more than the engine itself.
I am not an expert but I think, from what I've read in this forum, that an interplanetary engine has to be relatively heavy to propulse a class 100 tons spaceship, maybe 20 tons (?) but it is also relatively simple in design and so relatively cheap compared to the cost to send it in orbit. There is relatively few moving mechanic pieces in a nuclear reactor or a ionic engine, and the technology has been tested. The price of such a non chemical engine is probably not higher than the price of all the engines and pompes of a single space shuttle.
Regarding the time travel, well, I would not be afraid of a 3/4 months trip, but 6 months would be long yes. The "Boing" Mars space ship could offer different prices for the different Mars/Earth configuration. Those who cannot afford the fast trip when Mars is closer would just pay for a slower but cheaper travel.
Anyway, all this is science fiction as long as there is no real space colonisation program. We can only trust private initiative.
Thanks for the ShuttleC link, short but explicite. A clean, powerful concept, whitout much of extra work to do since most of it has been done with the shuttle already.
But to say the truth, I don't trust anymore the public space agencies, canadian, europeen, russian or sadly to say, the american NASA, for that kind of project.
At that point, it would be better for NASA to sale all its patents to construct the shuttle and the shuttle C to private american companies and keeps focusing on science or the ISS if this is what NASA wants. I think that anybody would be happy to be transported by a ShuttleC "Boing" to Mars and pay an arm for that. Anyway here is the fact: no need to study matter/antimatter space propulsion, it seemed that the shuttle C was all what was needed for a real ambitious space exploration program and it has been abandonned ????
I want a Shuttle C quickly !!!!!
Can you describe shuttle-C nebob2 ? I 've never heard about it. If this is what you said, the shuttle is replaced by a "cargo pod", the total mass of this cargo pod should then be around 100 tons. 2 or 3 like that, assembled into orbit, could constitute the first space ship designed for interplanetary trip, and never designed to land, wherever is the place to land. That ship should just have to come back to low earth orbit to refuel after its trip and would only go from low earth orbit to a low planet orbit.
The safest fuel to propulse this ship, according to what I've read in this thread, is still a chemical H2/O2 (or hydrocarbure/O2) for the orbital insertion where you need plenty of power quickly available, associated, maybe, whith a nulear or ionic reactor for the long term trip.
It seems to me that a fleet of Shuttle + Shuttle-C makes sense and makes the long term spatial exploration possible. Since the fleet of space shuttle already exist, why NASA never invested in that shuttle C ?, it's certainly not more expensive than the ISS.
Hi all,
It's not that "chemical" is that bad, it's just that the concept of wasting engines, turbopomps, tanks and basically 90% of the expensive hardware to send 10% in orbit is deceptive. The space shuttle, yes, but the boosters and the big tank are lost. In addition, the space shuttle's weight is 90 tons or so, that would be better to put something else than the space shuttle itself on top of the big boosters and its powerful engines. The idea seems obvious, why not to put a full load instead of the space shuttle, like a an interplanetary space ship, nuclear/plasma or ion propulsed . Just keep the boosters and the tank. This has never been proposed ?
ArianeV has been proposed originally to launch a small navet, but the concept has been abandonned. It seemed a good launcher for that purpose however. Same for the russian Energia. With no goals to go further, or no big easy money at the end, such projects are simply abandonned. But there is a goal to go further: the Mars and space exploration and colonization.
Thanks to reply Robert,
So OK, forget about fission or fusion. Then, are we going to be stuck forever with hydrogen and oxygen ? Those huge H2 tanks seem very incovenient. Is there no new molecule combination better or equivalent to H2/O2, which would require just small external tanks like those used for fighters ?
I am talking about chemistry here, for example, is there any useful application for the carbon cages everybody's talking about ?
Hi Robert,
You seem pretty good at physic. I posted a question in another thread about combustion-fission. I wanted to know if a chemically drive fission was possible. Is it wrong to think that some fission of few uranium atoms could help a rocket propellant mixture to deliver its power ? Very very few fission I mean, more like a catalyzer for the propellant reaction.
Also, do you think that "cold fusion" has a future in propulsion ? I read somthing like a cavitation of bubble inside an acetone solution delivers more power, in addition to some neutrons, than it consoms energy. In a 2001 Science paper I think.
best,
dickbill
Hi all,
since chemical boosters still seem the only practical solution to send important mass into orbit, what about the recent advances in chemical propellant ? Is there no promissing advances possibles ?
Is the couple H2/O2 cryogenic or H2/O2 atmospheric still the best combination for specific impulsion ?
What about heavier highly unstable, semi fissile, molecules encaged into carbon cage buckminsterfullerenes, like polyanion/cation Uranium complex, which could oxydize/detonate and partly go into a chemically drive fission reaction. It would be nice to add the atomic energy to the molecular oxidization. Is there no such molecules synthetized in the purpose to serve at rocket propellant ? I am sure the US have done some research in that area (51) , but maybe it's top secret and restricted to the US air force usage....
Hi, Number_04
"But what is the differce from doing that then just taking fertilizer or compost with us? "
It's fine to take fertilizer but the problem is the mass, impossible to carry 500 tons of soil to make the biomass needed to feed a colony of just 10 people. On the other side, "ready to use" microorganism which could grow on poor martian regoltith would slowly but surely constitute this biomass.
To come back to the aquarist tank example, you can inoculate a really big tank with just a handful of sand from another running and healthy tank, containing millions of different microorganisms, worms copepods etc, but already adapted to the life in a tank. Some grams are enough.
As no known organism can survive on Mars and cannot be used as such an innoculatum in Mars, I simply suggest to create a Martian-like ecosystem by using an enclosed pressurized chamber here on earth. Introduce first in that chamber a little bit of living soil, in its normal conditions and then slowly, shift to Mars analog physical and chemical conditions.
Some points here:
1) As I said before, do not start necesseraly from artic or antartic soil, it is not obvious that they can adapt/evolve to Mars conditions better than a tropical or marine soil. I known that it is counterintuitive, but I can argue on that point latter if needed.
2) Go slowly, that's the key to success. (like for marine tank, ecosystems that go slowly go safely). The change or shift to martian conditions could need years ! we are not in a hurry anyway. In this enclosed chamber/ecosystem, wait until the system is stable before to do any change. And increase the biodiversity as much as possible before to shift to Martian conditions. Go slowly, for example remove 1% of initial soil and replace it by a reconstituted martian-like regolith every two month. Same for temperature, UV irradiations, light intensity and atmosphere composition. Do not change everything in the same time, i.e decrease the light, add oxydized regolith, remove air from the chamber. At critical points when everything seems to die or starved, stop the shift or go back slowly, wait more before the next shift.
Obviously, this forced ecosystem could take several years to adapt. We could help a bit, by introducing some vector plasmids or virus to shuffle the genetic pool of the ecosystem at the time of the shift at which the microorganisms feel the stress and try to adapt to the new conditions by integrating new DNAs. That phenomenon has been observed in bacteria: when the environnemnt is changing, the DNA replication machinery of the bacteria is "volontarly" imprecise, which increases the mutation and variation rate and can accpept foreign DNA more easily, through a phage or an episome. Those otherwise genetically stable bacterias now mutate at higher rate until the environnmental conditions are stabilized and then, their replication system locks again.
Simple barometric chambers that divers use to recompress could be used, sampled and maintained automatically so that the overall price of the experiment would not be astronomic.
At the end we could have an ecosystem of bacteria, phages algae and fungus and primitive plants able to survive in conditions very close to Mars, without any addition of fertilizers, with maybe just a temperature close to the freezing point. A temperature at 0 degree celsius would require a tented crater or some grounded system to heat locally the permafrost, or alternatively, a microorganism secreting a natural transparent glucoproteic coat acting like a protection/greenhouse for the other microorganisms. Who knows what evolution could invent ?
Then our inoculum, once on Mars, can potentially transform tons of Mars regolith, providing the biomass that we need to sustain the higher vegetals and our small colony.
As opposed to a fish farm, that system would run in low energy input, no water input, no light input and would still be able to continue to adapt on its own to martian conditions.
In my opinion, starting food production on Mars from higher ecosystem (fish farm, hydroponic etc) would be a mistake. Their is no biodiversity and no buffering systems, no back up possible. Inevitably such an industrial farm production would succumb soon or later to a virus or an internal desequilibrium. We need to set up the food chain from the very beginning, from the regolith and with an ecosystem almost independant of human activities.
bye
Hi,
As said previously, vegetables needs some organic soil before they can grow. However, it is possible to start from low level organism like photosynthetic bacteria,algae, fungus and symbiotic associations like lichens which do not requires organic matter and huge amount of water and light.
It's a primitive ecosystem which needs to be settle down first before it can accomodate higher level vegetals. It is out of question to grow tomatoes straigh from the regolith. Symbiotic association of primitive organisms such as algae + fungus (lichen) , photosynthetic bacteria + eucaryotes (corals) etc, have a synergistic effect. Very often, the symbiotic association can adapt to rougher conditions than a single isolated micro-organism could tolerate. In short, Biodiversity is the solution. We could have unexpected associations of those primitive organism viable on partially milded martian conditions, thanks to the millions of possible combinations of such symbiots and to the natural selection process.
Don't forget the virus/bacteriophages in your imported starter soil. Virus accelerate the genetic adaptation of the different microorganism present in the starter soil through DNA shuffle between different species. Then come the worms, then the insects and finally the tomatoes and the beans.
How to set up this primitive ecosystem on Mars, import the terran microorganism ecosystem ? put it on Mars and wait there until it adapts ? A better way is to do it on Earth, start from a known ecosystems in an isolated barometric chamber with a normal soil and slowly, very slowly, shift the conditions to temperature, pressure, gaz and soil composition to milded martian conditions. The key is to go slow to allow the genetic adaptation and natural selection to drive the biological evolution.
I warn against the tentation to start only from "cold, rough" ecosystems, such as antartic living ecosystems or lake vostok, toundra lichen etc, and disregard the tropical microorganisms.
On the long term, those initially tropicaly adapted ecosystems might have a better potential to martian conditions in this evolution driven experiment than an ecosystem picked up from the artic toundra. The reason is that natural selection plus random variation and genetic shuffling is by far too imprevisible and too complex and thus cannot be predicted. The combinations possibilities are billions of billions, much more than by just using transgenic plants.
Here is the analogy for those of you aquarist: when you want to set up a new sea or fresh water tank, a good way is to start from the soil from another healthy tank and then put the fishes into the new tank once it is stable. The bigger the tank, the longer it is to set up and to reach its equilibrium, you have to go slow. Aquarist know that. Mars is the tank, empty. We are the fishes. We put ourselves inside the tank and have to set up our own environment.
I am confident that such a primitive ecosystem could be created and ready to use in martian conditions such as a green house located at the martian equator, using martian regolith and no additional light at a slightly above freezing temperature.
I completely agree that terraforming should be done. I also suggest that, if we find old traces of life on Mars, whatever this is dormant spores or almost dead dried oxydized organisms, we should try to resuscitate them, try to understand their "genetic" code and ultimately integrate their genetic code inside ours for a better adaptation to Mars conditions. Through us, those true "martians" will find a new way to continue their path to consciousness that the unfortunate conditions of the rude Martian climate did not allow.
About their genetic code now, it doesn't matter if they have no real DNA, ultimately a living organism is defined by the information content it can hold, its "negantropy content" as said Erwing Shroedinger in his book "What is life ?". It doesn't matter what chemical form takes that information. No doubt that we will be able to translate this information/genetic code/whatever into a DNA code that our human genome could understand.
We have integrated old bacterial parasites in the past, and now they are endosymbiotic organel inside our cells: the mitochondria and they give us most of our metabolism. Martians still have a future !
ka !