New Mars Forums

Rune,

I did not set out to be a jerk on this, so please forgive me if it would now seem that is what I am doing.  I did not have time to research it before now, and I feel a bit nervous that what I have found may not entirely agree.  Please accept it or correct it as you feel needed.  I entirely  intend to be polite.

Anti-Matter
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antimatter … propulsion

An infant technology, but preuming a consirvative intrepreation of an improvement from 100 ms to 1000 seconds, isn't that an improvement on storage of 10,000/1?

It is easy to get me to slip on a bananna peel in the world of math, but I see that as being 16.67 minutes (1000 seconds). At least one bomb could be set off with that.  (Delivering the antimatter to the bomb?  Well, I said infant technology.  I am just trying to judge if there is any hope at all, and I think there is).

What if another improvement of 10,000 times for the storage could be achieved?  16.67 minutes * 10,000 = 115.74 days (I think).  Go to Mars and collect $200.00.

Starships? Not likely in my lifetime, but perhaps if an on board source of anti-matter could be created?  It would be quite fantastic if the Bussard Ram Jet could be coupled to this concept.  I know that fusion of regular Hydrogen is much harder than Heavy water and Helium3, but perhaps with antimatter triggering?

Anyway as I said I am interested in a planetary transport, not a starship, except for speculation fun.

I was looking for an article where a person had indicated that large amounts of anti-matter could be created in orbit with a machine, but I did not find it but I found this stuff, very interesting:  The Van Allen belts have anti-matter in them that might be captured some day.

http://forums.liveleak.com/showthread.php?t=83679
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2390638,00.asp
http://www.centauri-dreams.org/?p=19198

Anyway I am not so stuck on anti-matter that I would want to depend on it.  It is most likely for some considerable time in the future, and in fact when it does come, I think that perhaps heavy water and Helium 3 would be the prefered use for an anti-matter triggered explosion.

But for now, back to Thorium and U233 and other Uranium:

http://uranium-news.com/2010/09/11/yes- … m-uranium/

http://www.americanscientist.org/issues … ium-future

http://kevinmeyerson.wordpress.com/2012 … ear-bombs/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uranium-233
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uranium

It is interesting that there are potential sources of Thorium on Mars as well.

Among the other things I have read in the other links I posted is that with U233 you will have some U232 which is very dangerous.  However as suggested in the quotes above, extracting U233 might be done by a chemical process, which I interpret as being favorable.

I have to add that in order for this technology to be safely used I think that our global culture will have had to evolve a trust system of some kind sufficient to maintain reasonable control of all of these processes.  After all it is fission bombs in orbit isn't it.

Sadly there is likely still quite a few control freak groups who have always wanted to modify the human race before we go into space (Superman dreams),  both communist, and fascist, and also religious.

I think it stems from a internal projection of the inadiquate nature of the members of such groups on to the rest of the world.  It is easier to try to make other people be better than to try to be better yourself.   No matter who you have to kill.

I know far less about it than you do.  However, I think that there could be U238? on the Moon with the Thorium.

Maybe an antimatter trigger (Very futuristic), with a U238/u233 mixture could explode?  As I said I don't know.

Well it is good to have this conversation, but I always like to have a Plan a, b, c, .........

As GW Johnson has said we do not have enough facts about the real "On the ground situation".

It is good that certain persons will debate in favor of "a" while I might propose "b", (As plan B), and perhaps someone else will bring in "c".  This is not bad, it is good.

We don't know yet what the medical implications are for alternative gravitational fields, or simulated graviatation for that matter.

We don't know what Phobos and Demos are.  Are they a great deal?  Are they dry dust bunny's in orbit?

We don't know all the surprises that Mars has to offer.  Perhaps it has quite a few favors to offer us that we don't know about yet.

We don't know what the geopolitical situation will be in the future.  It is likely to deviate from what it is now.  That has implications for funding, and even for premissions to go forward.

We don't know if there is life on Mars.

If there were life on Mars, is it merely a branch of the same family as Earth (Transpermia), or is it utterly unique?

If Space X, Falcon Heavy turns out to be the permanent most low cost launch, then we will eventually get a stabilized notion of what equipment can be delivered to orbit to facilitate habitation of the Mars/Phobos/Demos region.  But I am guessing that it could keep changing for a time.

We don't know what telerobotics is going to do to deliver materials for the same purpose from NEO and the Moon.

So, I have a hard time when people try to pour concrete.

However by all means it is great when you take your debate position and bring light to a possible future.  Just don't be too eager to blow out other peoples candles.

Eventually when some things mature, then it will be time to pick a best plan, with enought flexibility to adapt to the unexpected discoveries that are likely, and then it may be wrong to not rally around it.

But we are not there yet.

So maybe $1000.00/Pound in the best case for Falcon Heavy.  Thanks.

Lewis;

You apparently missed that I was proposing centrifuge type artificial graviation inside of or ajacent to a moon of Mars.  I was not proposing to raise children in the gravitational field of Phobos or Demos alone.

GW Johnson, I have been following the various posts about Orion type propulsion, and I have also because of it researched more.  There apparently has been a lot of work done lately (10-20 years) on using anti-matter to trigger fission and fusion events to drive such a ship.  This then would make the size of the explosions smaller and more comfortable to work with.

The Moon has Uranium, Thorium, and Helium-3 for fission and fusion.
The Earth of course can provide heavy water.

I do believe that you are on to something but it is even more wonderful than we think.

If you can build a tug to move a NEO or asteroid, surely it can be used for expiditions to Phobos and Demos.

If you can access those moons with mega equipment, then if they do have good resources, then they are construction materials, and fuel tanks, very convenient in fact in location.

I really think we should consider a stop at those Moons prior to the main event on the surface of Mars, because if science could get samples that include historical rocks from the early times of Mars, and on site and return samples were available, then quite a lot of funding could come from the science community.  Further and parallel, the business community could make a profit from the other bulk materials. 

If water ice, then the result is hollow spaces in the Moons where centifuge habitats could be constructed, as I said in my first post on this thread.

Going directly to Mars could lead to confilict between the Mars bugs and the Science community, while not attracting the business cummunity.

Going to Phobos and Demos first could attract both the Mars Bugs, the science cummunity, and the business community, if water can be shipped back to Earth orbit, for the moving of bulk materials to compose solar energy collectors.

An economy comprised of energy beamed to Earth, Platnum and such from the NEO's yes water from the NEO's, but I bet where the Earth/Moon proccesses are concerned you could hardly ever get enough water/fuel to move things about and to suport life and chemical processes.

I just have a suspission that doing this will get more to the Mars surface with greater assurance of the survivability of the settlements than just dumping people on the planet (If the high powers would even let you).

Also, the discovery of life on Mars would have various values.  The search for it could come up empty, in which case the human race would poised perfectly to appropriate a new home.

OK, I liked your thinking, but I can think of alternative futures, and so I will play the skunk as I often do, and stink up things a bit.

I agree that it may be a good plan to start by having orbital facilities for young babies.  I will go further and say that perhaps it would be good to consider a possible future where indeed childhood involves prolonged presence in the orbit of Mars.  I specifically am looking at Phobos and Demos.  Any use of them will require a deaper definition of their nature, so a program of discovery specific to them is essential to planning for Mars in my opinion.

Specifically I am leaning on this type of question.  What is the nature of Phobos and Demos?  It is apparent that they have hollow space inside of them per this reference:

http://nineplanets.org/phobos.html

I cannot prove, and do not know if there is a significant ice content, but apparently it is not yet ruled out.  Some speculation has it that Phobos and Demos are not Asteroids, but Outer Solar system objects.  If so, then they started with a lot of ice, and may still retain some of it.  Who knows, perhaps even some Ammonia deep down?  (Nitogen).

I unlike many of you at this time would settle for an personed expidition to Mars which would be preceded by unpersoned probes, to futher analyze Phobos and Demos.  That first personed expidition could first do some expiriments on utilizing the resources of Phobos and Demos, and hopefully would include the process of sintering the dust of the surface into a radiation shelter somewhere.  Further hopefully they could dig into a moon to Ice.  I am hoping that large sections of permafrost did exist, because it might suggest that hollows could be created in which spinning habitats could be built.

Obviously the ice would have value as life support and propellant.

I cannot give a date, but I will stick to your first mission date, 2020?  Lacking any other notion of certainty.

A point I have read is that it is thought that Phobos and Demos will contain fragments of rock from various era's of the history of Mars.  Certaily this would be a useful byproduct.  Obviously the samples will fetch money from scientific institutions that which to test their theories of reality against the evidence it might offer.  That point was where much of the early rocks of Mars have been altered those fragments on Phobos and Demos could be representative of pages of history for Mars.

I think that a mission to transport machines to Mars and also land them on the surface may be too ambitious.  Yes, if contamination is not an issue, then perhaps a few landings of humans here and there, but I see that the main effort should be interplanetary travel, and no big effort for direct human landings from Earth.

I feel that Phobos and Demos could be integrated into a infant economy compising NEO objects, and Lunar telerobotic products.  I feel that bases on Phobos and Demos could earn money by hosting scientists from Earth who would study rock samples from Phobos and Demos (Mars fragments), and indeed samples from Mars, and also with telepresence the environment of Mars.

I am satisfied that Phobos and Demos could be good happy places for a significant growing population.  I would like to see at least 5000, as an Arc in case humans on Earth fall prey to their occasional bouts of mass stupidity.

I should think that that phase could last for 30 years, very optimistically from 2020 to 2050.  But by 2050, I would have no problem imagining a very large orbital population.  Perhaps 100,000.

It all depends on the evolvement of an economy, and technology.  I feel that the human race is just on the edge of a real technology that could transport people from Earth orbit to Mars orbit at a reasonable cost, particularly if large amounts of water could be had from Phobos and Demos.

At some point in the developement of Phobos and Demos, yes a starter population on the surface of Mars.  More of an experimental station, where methods to adapt to Mars could be worked on.  Once that fire got burning, it would have a orbital economy to link to for it's growth.

At that point, it would seem reasonable to me to inject greenhouse gasses into the Martian atmosphere from Phobos and Demos, because they also appear to have significant Carbon.  The injection of Hydrogen might scrub the Chlorine out of the Martian atmosphere, allowing the formation of some incresed Ozone.

So, by 2070, a path towards a Mars where the average pressure is 11 Millibars, and Ozone makes it easier for plant life to prosper on the surface.  By that time gentic engineering may have also unlocked some of the impediments to primitive plant life living on Mars.

I know that it is typically supposed that it might take 100 years to warm Mars up with a facility on the surface producing greenhouse gasses, but what if Phobos and Demos really took off economically, as an integrated part of a near solar system economy?  One short cut might be to add some greenhouse gasses and to then impact a NMO (Near Mars Orbit object) or two onto the CO2 deposits in the south polar ice cap.  Perhaps that could short cut the 100 years to get to 11 Millibars average down to 50 years?

Summary:  I think that if Phobos and Demos have the characteristics I have suggested above, that the habitation of Mars is best achieved by a two step process, habitation in orbit, and then habitation of Mars itself.

I think the Moon would be fine.  Underground storrage, freeze dried remains. (Amber?)  Some type of perma-record such as etched stones, telling a portion of life storries, some artificts.

A time capsul for future astronauts if any. (Human or otherwise)  With a marker on the surface of the Moon.

I would think that the shaddowed craters of the Moon after volitiles were extracted would be a good place.  Perhaps even leave some viable DNA, if that could be possible.

5000 years in the future someone stops by?

50,000 years?

500,000 years?

5 Billion years? 

Then of course one should also be made further out in the solar system where it is more likely it will survive the Giant phase of our star.

Imagine sending a message to Billions of years into the future.

Might as well make it more than a grave yard.

I think that rogue planets are a certainty, and evidence suggests that they are common, and it is likely that many may have subsurface habitats suitable for life.
It might be necessary to go down 10 miles for that, but also if it is a planet with volcanism, then closer to the surface is likely.  I really expect that more likely there were comets and asteroids expelled from other solar systems incorporated into the gas cloud prior to condensation.  However, for a whole nursery of stars a rogue planet with a habitat?  I think it could happen.

But why I really came back to post.

I read an article posted here, and cannot find it again, however the person posting that put a link such as these in it, and it has really caused me to ponder what I think I know, and what could be.  If you can identify it, I will let that person know that I have pirated their information, and thank them.

http://www.criticalmass.uk.com/index.ph … vironment/

http://spacecoalition.com/blog/life-on- … ng_wp_cron

http://www.skymania.com/wp/2012/04/lich … html/5806/

http://www.mendeley.com/research/surviv … y-study-7/

One thing I have realized is that I have to appologize to the people at Red Colony.  I thought it was perposterous that Mars could be seeded with Lichen, since I have always been told that the UV flux on the surface of Mars is lethal to all life.  I believe that in these experiments or similar ones CyanoBacteria also survived similarly.  Again, if there are any persons from Red Colony here, I appologize for the non-belief.  (I did not express it much, but I was very negitive in my thinking).

So, to be done with it I will express what I have thought about, search for and also my conclusions and speculations.

The Lichen is part fungus, and then part CyanoBacteria or Algae.

Fungus loves to inhabit the places between my toes, because I go to the gym.  I take great measures to stop it.

So, as expressed in the articles, a crack in a rock is a great improvement beyond the general Martian environment, having some resemblance to the gap between my toes.

I did some checking on Lichen, and discovered that in addition to producing acids to break down rock, they with that process produce salts, organic salts I guess it said.  So, this I think could have big implications as to how the crack in the rock could be moisturized, and how liquid water could exist below 0 Degrees C in that crack.

I also speculate that even without the production of salts by Lichen, salts should collect inside cracks anyway, since if there are wind born dusts with salt in them, and if there are temporary dews in the cracks of the rocks, then some brine should result.

In either case, brine tends to attract moisture into itself, and of course serves as an antifreeze.

Brine can be so concentrated that it poisons life, but during the day night freeze thaw cycle, brine should separate into a less briny part of ice and a more briny part of liquid.  Then during the morining warm up, the ice might melt, at lets say -15 Degrees C to 0 Degrees C, and be available as a life giving drink to a life form.

Sea ice has a habitat that may have parallels:
http://www.arctic.noaa.gov/essay_krembsdeming.html

So in the morning the lichen might get a drink of water at perhaps -5 Degrees C.  Then perhaps it has to behave like a cactus.  I beleive that Lichens are in fact very much like that, since they grow in deserts also.  I read an article about Lichens in Antarctica, which said that the reason they were not more prevalent over the land surfaces was not the cold, but rather the lack of moisture on those land surfaces.

I have also surmised that the "Toes" shall we prefer to say, that is the rock on either side of the "Crack" will have accelerated cooling at night and will then draw heat out of the crack, and prepair it to condense water vapor when it becomes available in the early morning.  I am not sure which will heat the more duing the day, the "Toes" or the "Crack".  I expect it would be variable according to the angle of the sun to the structure, and that structures themselves will be variable.

What I have read and already knew was that water expands and contracts with heat and freezing/thaw.  Salt also expands and contracts in accordance with moisture content and heat I think.  And so do Lichens.  This along with the acids and salts tends to break down the rock and provide nutirients.  On Mars, I am sure dust conveyance from the wind would also provide nutrients, and perahaps also hostile factors.

So, I am guessing that for Lichen on Mars, the two factors that would be major is sunlight sometimes, and moisture.  Sunlight is ubiquitous across Mars, with approximately similar amounts of it during a Martial year.  It might be modified by terrain, such as a shady canyon, or perhaps a mountain exposed to the maximum.

I cannot say where the best dews are, but I could speculate that the Equator is not unfavored.  It has comparitively frequent and regularized day night cycles as opposed to the poles.  So I would look to Hellas in the summer, and the Marriner Rift Valley system more parts of the year.

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/ar … 3309002323

PIC:

Ice fogs then, as a favorable factor.  The moisture decends from the atmospheric column at night, and sometimes makes a fog in night in low places.  Therefore concentrating mositure.  In the very early morning the fog dissapears, but I would presume that at that point the atmosphere has a high humidity at a low elivation.
It is also at that point that the crack in the rock where lichen might live, would be at it's coldest temperature.  If the relative humidity of the air is at 50%, and the crack has a temperature 20 degrees Fahrenheight below that air temperature then condensation will occur.  Likely the air might be even more saturated with mosture, and likely the temperature differential may be greater as the morning progresses.

I am still concerned about the Ultra Violet light, but the experimenters said the lichen put up with it for more than a month, so I am more inclined to think that Lichen may have endured periods in history on Earth where Ultra Violet flux was very high, and it still carries this ability.  I will presume this until shown otherwise.

So, I think that apparently surface or near surface (Crack) life is possible on Mars, and I think that whereever life originated in the solar system, it has been shared.
Lichen is ancient on Earth, so the probability of it on Mars increases.  Or perhaps something like it.

If I were to look for life on Mars now, it would be either in freshly exposed subsurface ice, or somehow fly a probe into the rift valley, and take a cotton swab, and take samples out of the cracks in rocks where some salt is likely to be present to allow tiny amount of temporary brine.

The sooner known the better, for planning purposes.

GW Johnson said:

Well I agree that that is closer to our actual scope of abilities, so you are not wrong.

However placing a moon into a geosynch and bonding it by gravitation does present the possiblity that the spin of the planet Mars can be used to generate large amounts of power as the apparatus attached to that moon cuts the magnetic lines of force of the plasma from the sun.

On the other hand if it did slow down the crust and create a magnetic field, that magnetic field could not extend to geosynch or it would choke off the process.

But the captured moon notion is for a race of beings beyond human kind I would think.  If humans ever achieved that, then they would have graduated to a new level in my opinion.

So, I think you may be quite correct, long before that achievement the most likely method could be to capture asteroids into Mars orbit, and cook the volitiles out of them with solar concentrators, to produce a thicker atmosphere.  But then you are left with the metals and slag.  Why not make a artificial moon, make it big, and make it multi compartment hollow for habitation?  It might be a long time before it was large enough to actually be used to slow down the Martian crust, but well talk is cheep, and I will be a long time gone before anyone makes those decisions.

Spacenut said:

Well, I will agree that those are big.  However I am also inclined to entertain the notion that:
1) Photons striking the sunlit side of a planet cause a different electical charge than the dark side has, and I expect ground currents to run deep into the Planet, producing heat.
2) I expect that the solar wind which is magnetic and very energenic induces currents into the Earth and Mars, in diferent ways, because Earth has a significant magnetic field and Mars does not.  However, Mars must have significant feromagnetic metals that are not oxidized, and further down, other materials under heat and pressure may exhibit magnetic properties.

As you know Europa and Io use tides to heat up. 

Until recently that might not have been thought of either.

So, if this were to prove true, then Volcanism is caused not only by radioactive decay, but by electrical discharge due to solar energy, and also the solar wind.

So, if this were true, then it is possible that the Earth could remain habitible to life even after the heat from radioative decay is greately deminished.

If this were true, it would also indicate that Mars, and the Moon would be hotter inside than the radioactive decay theories predict.  I could be wrong, but I think that that may already have been confirmed for the Moon.

You see I think that solar systems start out lumpy, with collections of Ateroids, comets, and planets, in them.  If a small star were to embed itself, I think that that would stop the cloud from condensing.

So, if an Earth ejected, and with life were to wander into such a cloud, it might become the point of nucleation for a star.  Before it got too hot however, objects might splash into it and eject life. 

Earths wandering in space very likely would have life underground even in interstellar space.

Or an alternate notion is that an Earth enters a cloud, and is slowed down by friction and collection of gass and dust, enough that it begins to orbit the cloud in an eliptical orbit.  Eventually it's orbit might circularize, due to dipping repeatedly into the cloud.  So then it might nucleate something.

Perhaps asteroid newly formed and liquid inside gets infected by the captured planet.  And then that asteroid gets ejected from it's solar system and enters into a sibling domain in a stellar nursery, and infects it and so on.

If that were the case, then we might want to identify our sibling stars, the stars that were born with our star.  Could this be done by spectrometry?

Oh well, then perhaps only life on Earth.

I am not making claims I am just speaking of possibilities.

Very happy.

Add on airlock/observation pod, 2 stage Air lock 1/2 and most of the pressure differential delt with by a 32-100 foot 32 DegF water column, and a small fraction by a very simple airlock pressurized with Martian Atmosphere.

Large objects through the 2 stage airlock, people also.  The observation tower as an airlock?  Emergencies only.  Otherwise look at the sun and the sky and the stars at night.

Well, I had some problems with that, but anyway the picture is not that good, but you get the idea.  The two stage airlock on the left does most of it's work with a water column in a tube where the water is at 32 DegF / 0 DegC.  It also requires a standard airlock to handle perhaps 1/40 the of the load, and would do so by moving the air pressure from 6 to 25? Millibars.  Of course I have not shown the two sets of doors, 1 at the top of the water column, and 1 to get out to the Martial ambient environment.

The observation tower would mostly be that.  See the sun, see the stars.  However, it might also be used as an emergency airlock more like a standard airlock, it had such an airlock on a side of it, or in emergencies, it might function like the other air lock.  Mostly it would be a observation tower to help keep sanity.

Speeking of sanity, it's Friday.  Talk to you later.