New Mars Forums

Keong, I am intimidated by your credentials, but perhaps a start could be made with Lichen after all?

http://www.skymania.com/wp/2012/04/lich … ting.html/

Unless that is a fraud.

My understanding is that lichen can absorb moisture from frost or even the air at below freezing temperatures.  The day night cycles promote frost, and even a brief period of liquid water.  It appears that in favored conditions the lichen could even endure the UV.

If you worked on each, the Algae/Cyanobacteria and the Fungi portions, and then recombined them perhaps they could be made to function even better.

If there were a remnant of the ocean buried benieth a thin layer of rock, debris, and dust on the flat northern plain Vastitas Borealis.  That would be my target.  Surely if there had ever been life on the planet, you would find remnants in the ice, or if not in the sediments under it.

Even though I think that remnant is not so likely, it would be my target for terraformation.  (Antarctic Dry Valleys Blah Blah Blah).

In such a situation, only a moderate warming of the planet by atmospheric terraformation would be required, just a window of part of the Mars year where liquid water could exist, as ice water.

A more mechanical means would be to melt the ice by injecting heat.  A melted subsurface would provide an envronment to grow massive amounts of biomatter by also injecting chemicals, and of course if the atmospheric pressure were improved a bit, it might be possible to stabilize exposed ice on the surface of the ocean, allowing light to shine into the water, and also supporting photosyntisis.

I admit it is a bit optimistic, but it would beat waiting 200 years to completly thaw out Mars using greenhouse gasses.  (That could be done as well, but before a surface biosphere could exist, a subsurface, under ice biosphere might be possible).

Just for fun, I have been considering Vesta.

I quickly and with little concern for precision have calculated a few things:

0.025 g for gravitation.

0.36 km/s for escape velocity.

To hold down a full 1 bar atmosphere, you would need 1280 feet of water (More if it is ice), but that is for reference, I do not propose to use water.
But if you had building materials 4 times as heavy as water, you might need 320 feet.

That shell could be a honecomb type structure, with many cells, and of course with that much better safety factor against leaking.  I suppose some of the cells could simply be filled with stony materials as balast.  Some could have centrifuges in them to generate synthetic gravity.

I would think though that as it was built and made more heavy, a progression of atmosphere imposed over Vesta could be done.

10 MB, 50 MB, 250 MB, 330 MB, 500 MB and then perhaps 1 Bar.

That world is so small that perhaps support structures from the surface to the shell could be used.

So the builders would end up with a expansive living space in a honeycomb shell, a tiny world with a biosphere on it's surface, and an extensive mining operation subsurface, which might even reach to the core.  The mining spaces when they were done with them could also provide living spaces as well.

Maybe, but actually that is the attitude people are supposed to have during the crisis seculum.  They only regain confidence after it. (If they complete it successfully)

Louis two recent posts, suggesting Research, Entertainment, Advertising, and National Interests as sources of money, and it all makes sense to me.

I also see that he mentions timing being favorable to this.

I would add that this plan also has the following favorable aspect:
-Some scientists and others have a phobia about contaminating Mars with Earth organisms.
-Louis said that he thought that in a few decades human presence is a likely possibility.

-But if robotic probes do not confirm the existance of life on Mars (But still do not rule it out), it will be likely that the temptation for doing science on the ground will be so much greater than the impulse to prevent the spread of Earth organisms, that the scientific community will tilt towards favoring people on Mars for research.

Get the ice water ready, and have a sense of humor if you can.   
“In my opinion”: Outer space, which means anything not Earth, offers the following things I will mention, and of course other things I do not mention or am not aware of.
1)    Bulk raw materials/Energy.
2)    Potential habitats for humans.
3)    Space time induced communication lags (Extremely significant).
In it’s infancy a Mars community will want from the “Developed World” (Earth), whatever it can get at a good price. 
Unless you choose to intentionally go the Greenland route, which is a bit of a warning.  A small group of highly specialized Vikings of a small subset of the whole Nordic population, finds a few locations in Greenland where they can do marginal farming, due to a temporary favorable shift in the planets climate.  They are specialized, under the thumb of a ear-mouth entity .
Although the sea offers very significant resources for food, and the Inuit have a significant other technology, these people are farmers, and as the Inuit have strange ways, the ear-mouth entity inhibits any inclination that the local population has to adopt a different survival method.  In other words they remain specialized, and do not generalize, and are non adaptive.
The climate deteriorates, travel to Europe becomes  non-profitable due to sea ice conditions.  They consume their stock of wood, which was poor in the first place.  It appears that they did make attempts at some point to travel to mainland North America at some point, perhaps for wood.
A few very bad years for farming, and they all starved to death (Apparently).
Had they adopted Inuit technology, and also maintained a sea faring technology, and also had a greater genetic and cultural diversity, they might have had better odds to leave more than a memory of their existence .  But they specialized, and that branch passed into history, with the possibility that a few of them might have gotten back to Iceland.
Mars would ship bulk raw materials to Earth most likely if it shipped any material goods.   

Actually, I think the real deal would be the Asteroids next door selling raw materials to Mars and Earth, and Mars and Earth selling manufactured goods to them.

Mars would likely for some time like to participate in created goods from other locations in the solar system, of a better quality, because with variances in population and local materials and energy conditions, some items could be better produced at certain locations.  Much as exists in our current world economy.

Mars offers a chance for a habitat.  It also offers space time induced communication lags, perhaps allowing for greater individuality.
Maintaining our balance between being a top predator or prey is very important to me.
In my opinion: With the birth of civilizations, it was possible to generate human sub-populations which specialize in directing the activities of masses of humans.  This is valuable for focus and efficiency, but also due to specialization, such a population eventually looses generalist insight, and sinks to the base motivations of a top predator.  The efficiency by direction is valuable as long as the general population is allowed greater right of individual action, but the top predator population loosing awareness capability eventually resorts to competition with other powerful entities for control of all things, the results being unfavorable to the continuation of adaptability.  That culture becomes more vulnerable to bad outcome from a new challenge to it.
The forms of human intelligence are manifested in individual realms supported by individual brains.
Verbalization and other forms of communication allow Hierarchy and Networks, and produce hive minds.  The only reason that we don’t do everything with crowds of people verbalizing is that it is slow, much slower than the pudding in my head can think.  But it has broader resources, as in library.  But a hive network is open to an infection from top predators, with limited awareness and base desires.
The good news is that with the time lags that space time provides, communities in space at a distance from each other can be insulated from such predation, because verbal and other hive communications will be slowed down even further, and the pudding in our individual heads can be used for better purposes then to satisfy silly agenda’s which result from the situation which I have described above.

Therefore I am pleased with your notion of an implied population on the Moon, and a settlement of Mars.  Some populations insulated from Earth Hive activities will result.  A network of populations with time lags in their communications with each other will help to balance the situation so that creativity (Child thoughts) may be birthed, (Creativity, Invention), and the whole structure will not be co-opted to provide satisfaction of base desires for a subset that specializes in communication and the manipulation of populations.

Your  Earth/Moon/Mars plan is an excellent one, but Cycling spaceships with time lags added to that could be even better.
I do not require you to agree that any of this is true, but rather simply wanted to express how I see things, my opinion.

Well I hope that works out, or something like it.

But having solved technology, then you have to play economics.  I am not arguing true cyclers here, but rather, that method you propose would also need to be the best economy vs Ion engines and Gravity assists for instance for cargo.  But maybe it will be.

I am very short on time, have perhaps 10 minutes to think and answer, so I will not attempt full argument at this time.

Technically a fuel depot is a cycling spaceship.  But I know, I am playing games here.

But I see a polar range, where perhaps a fuel depot is at one pole, and a fully developed cycler network is at the other.  I have no objections to fuel and materials depots.  But I might argue that you must also rendezvous and dock, or connect to a fuel depots.  Perhaps you could avoid air locks with sophistocated automation, but many of the same concerns exist.

I do not currently have the mental awareness, and may never on my own have it, to porperly assess the faults of the following, but I would suggest that in a continuum between the two polar opposites defined above, I might ask Santa Claus if:

May I have a unpersoned cycler/depot that could be positioned using solar/nuclear energy & planetary inertia, and having an ion propulsion system such as the dawn spacecraft, to get it alligned for gravity assists.

Could I position that depot so that it has a eccentric orbit that will converge with Mars.

Could I have a effective propulsion system to carry people into space, and have a free return orbit to Mars and back to Earth.

Could I make the two systems converge, where upon the person ship rendezvousing with the "Excetric Depot" would be abel to take on materials to allow it to convert to a mission that could actually enter the Martian relm.

During transit could the people on that merged ship have synthetic gravity and radiation protection and expanded living space?

It is something to want perhaps, maybe not what we can achieve.

Don't know, beyond my level.

Well Terraformer, you got me

My coarse adjustment is off to a dangerous limit, so to respond to human limitations, the band of atmospheric column usable is constricted with the hardware I suggested, on the issue of pressure.

On the issue of temperature, it is less constricted over time, if you allow for a cooling process (I originally said no atmospheric change except the acid characteristic).

The heat of Venus is solar and internal heat.  I do not expect that the internal core generated heat can keep Venus hot.  The shells would both shade and insulate the hot atmosphere below.  But I did suggest openings where aircraft could pass through, and they could also provide ventilation. 

Further if there were ventilation ports, some where cold air poured down, and some where hot air displaced by the sinking cold air could pass upward, then turbines could harness this air flow.

A changing temperature profile for the atmospheric column, however would also change the buoyancy at a altitude, so the Floating Shells would require adjustment for that.  Either flexible hinges built in, or special compensations like ballast adjustments.

Karov, has bypassed and modified my suggestion with a counter suggestion, which as usual is much more ambitious, and also very interesting.

I guess the obvious common point is where typically Venus terraformation plans abhor the thick atmosphere and try to get rid of it, or in the case of floating cities try to live with it, in these plans, harmonization with it provides a greater potential yield of dwelling surface area.

By the way, in the future, if I do not respond in a timely manner to posts, and that seems rude, it can be because quite often when I try to access this site I get a warning of a malicious content.  (It appears to be some type of identity probe).

Karov,

So, how would your method work for Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune?  (Roughly 1 + some value g)

quote:

We havn't tested it, and you have not provided contrary evidence, so your contention is equivalent to my opinion.  I might argue with you on it, but it was simply injected as opinion by me and you are welcome to reject or criticize it.  I do have propposed evidence, but this thread is about cyclers.  That section on human nature (As I see it), and the politcal aspects that it drives, was connected to my opinion that other options should be considered to get around it.

I am thinking that adding fusion propulsion to the mix might change the game with cycling spaceships.

http://www.space.com/23084-mars-explora … ocket.html

So, if they actually show progress as claimed, I am excited about the claims for a Mars expidition, probabbly not involving any type of cycling spaceship/cycling hardware, but I am also thinking that this could change the game for cycling spaceships.

I think the since using such a rocket to transfer to an from cyclers involves much shorter trip times that an expidition to Mars, and since technically at least to a degree your rocket can be resupplied and serviced at each end of the trip, the weight constraints would be much relaxed, and such a transfer ship could have a great deal of redundancy in it's systems, which would help aleviate the issue where if you had a propulsion failure, the crew might be in great danger.

Further, I think that in a well devoloped system of habitats, it might be possible to have rescue ships to help in such a situation, similar to the coast gaurd.

So freight could travel in spiral orbits using Ion, or solar propulsions.  And populations could be transfered in relative comfort using cyclers, and fusion rockets.

I believe that Mr. Aldrin had also suggested an actual cycler that could go into parking orbit around Mars at times.  With fusion power perhaps that might make sense, where with chemical propulsion it is much more diffacult to support.

Fusion propulsion on the cyclers, might also make it easier to line up for a gravity assist from a flyby of a planet.

This is a related article I think:
http://www.space.com/23084-mars-explora … ocket.html

So, if it proves true for a Mars expidition, that's wonderful.
That would be suitable for the present condition, where the solar system population is centralized on Earth, and there are no habitates of siginificance elsewhere.  It is nice to have a 7 month expidition possibility.

But it would be even nicer later, to spend the outbound trip time in a much upgraded environment such as could be provided by a cycling spaceship.

I think that in the future when there would be a distribution of population off Earth, the above mentioned fusion driven space travel would also be suitable for use with cycling spaceships.

In that use the extra power it would have (If it works), would allow redundant backups in the ships, and so the danger where a malfunction in transfer to and from a cycling spaceship would be reduced.  Further, it would also be likely that a device like this would enable rescue ships to be available in the case where a transfer did fail, and a group of passengers were at risk of death.  Something like the coast gaurd.