New Mars Forums

I believe the article I noted above suggests Mars' crustal fields may do something significant in terms of shielding from cosmic radiation, as well as the solar wind. For the reasons noted above, I don’t think neutron radiation is any more of an issue on the surfaces of Mars and other celestial bodies than it is on Earth.   

I believe the Martian atmosphere is equivalent to about 2 cm thickness of lead shielding for radiation entering at the zenith.  The average attenuation would be much larger.  I don't know if that means there is little problem from X-rays and gamma radiation on the surface of Mars, but it assuredly reduces the problem very considerably. 

The possibility that properly selecting a location on Mars would largely eliminate radiation dangers has to be a great benefit for any possible long term human presence on Mars.

I did look around and found this:  http://energycatalyzer3.com/news/ecat-t … investment

"The investors had the Swedish National Testing and Research Institute measure ecat output on September 6 in Bologna and apparently found that ecat wasn’t putting out any more energy than it was drawing in electrical power. That would indicate it wasn’t generating power. After seeing these results from an independent tester the investors apparently withdrew."

The site gives zero information about who is doing the writing; it's a source in the clouds, which does make one wonder.  But the writer does go on to opine, "This doesn’t mean ecat is a failure merely that its performance did not impress the investors."  Hmmm.

That suggests to me that we are dealing with a true believer, not an objective observer.  Such an objective observer, confronted with what appears to me a black box with a wire running through it, would say something more akin to, "This failure impressed the investors negatively."  Actually one does not need to write this at all, it's akin to saying, "The Sun rose in the east today." 

There also seems to be considerable confusion as to when the test took place.  There's a youtube video from June and this, supposedly from September 6, both in Bologna. 

Maybe we don't need to wait till October?

Moon Revenue.

The cost for transit from the Moon and many Near Earth Objects to Earth would cost much less than transit from Mars to Earth. The Moon to Earth delta v, is about a fourth that of the Mars to Earth delta v.  The travel time from the Moon to Earth is about 2% of the travel time from Mars to Earth. The velocity entering Earth’s atmosphere from the Moon would be less than from Mars unless more delta v were expended reducing that difference.  Similar comparisons exist for NEOs. 

Operating on the Moon would much less expensive than operating on Mars because:

 Transit from Earth to the Moon would be cheaper
 Returning crews back to Earth would be much cheaper for the reasons given above
 A much larger percentage of the crew’s time would be spent working rather than transiting from one body to another.  About a year would be wasted transiting to and from Mars for each crew member with all the inherent expenses and dangers.  Only a week of transit time is required to and from the Moon.  Much greater crew flexibility would be possible since required mission times for the Moon would be as little as a few weeks, compared to 2-1/2 years for Mars.
 In addition, the necessity for on-site crews on the Moon would be very greatly reduced since remote control of machinery from Earth would be feasible on the Moon, but not on Mars.  Roundtrip communication delays from the Moon are always less than 3 seconds; from Mars such delays vary from 6 to 44 minutes.  And Earth is always visible from the near side of the Moon.  Not so from any location on Mars. 

What could Mars offer that the Moon and many NEOs couldn’t?

1. Regolith – Plenty of regolith on the Moon and NEOs.
2.  Meteorites - Plenty of meteorites on the Moon and NEOs.  Of course, many NEOs are kind of like fresh, unprocessed meteorites.
3.  Gold, platinum, diamonds and other precious metals and stones. As likely on the Moon as on Mars.  Plus the Moon has He3 for whatever that will be worth. Not so on Mars.
4.   Moon-produced jewelry. A simple automated or remotely controlled machine on the Moon will be able to produce polished stones, etc.
5.   Luxury goods – e.g. a Moon Rolex.
6.   General commercial sponsorships.
7.   Space agency personnel.
8.   Sponsored colonists.
9.   University of the Moon franchise.  Remote learning from the Moon – you don’t even have to go there. 
10.  Sale of Moon TV rights.
11.  Luxury foods and wine from the Moon. And no worry about dust storms blocking out your solar power for months at a time.  No worry about weather at all. 
12.  Sale of “real time” interactive experiences on the Moon with no significant communication delays. Waiting half an hour to see what your interaction was will be a real drag.
13.  Moon tourism.  Busy billionaires can much more easily afford a two week voyage to the Moon and back than a 2-1/2 year jaunt to Mars – or even two months.
14.  Eternal Data storage.  Mars might barely beat out the Moon on this one.
15.  Moon Art.   Remotely directing the erection of sculptures on the Moon would a heck of lot easier without waiting half an hour for sensory input. Artists might find visiting the Moon a tad more convenient, and less dangerous, than visiting Mars.
16.  Sale of items used on the Moon to technology museums.
17.  Moon branding
18.  The Moon as a crematorium...it’s faster and cheaper and easier to visit.
19.  "My Explorer on the Moon."  A lot more fun than waiting half an hour to see where you went.
20. Speaking Tours for returned Moon explorers. 
21. Virtual speaking tours FROM the Moon with immediate Q&A.  I hate to say it, but former Presidents of the United States and Prime Ministers of Great Britain don’t get $200K per speech.
22.  Personally signed prints of photos taken on the Moon.
23.  Moon themed book publication. 
24.  Lightweight textiles made on the Moon.
25.  Commemorative medals struck on the Moon.
26.  Moon postage stamps.

Most of this seems bent on conning billionaires into buying useless junk.  One problem is the huge amount of competition for this market.  Another is that there is a steep diminishment of return with increasing quantity since most of the value stems from rarity. 

But here’s the main point: If this type of stuff were so profitable, why has no nation, corporation or billionaire latched onto these jackpots?  It’s been 40 years since the last manned Moon landing and 36 since the last Soviet sample return mission. It can be done, why hasn’t it been done FOR PROFIT by any of thousands of entities in the last four decades and into the foreseeable future?

Is it because these guys are all so dumb they don’t recognize the riches to be gained?  No one has been clever enough to con any nation, corporation or billionaire into doing it, ala Columbus and the monarchs of Spain?  Where’s Bernie Madoff when we need him?  Think of what coup this would be for Malta, Iceland or Taiwan; let alone Japan, India or China – and they could make money doing it.

I don’t think everyone is that dumb.  Zero commercial endeavors suggests that these payoffs are not there - for the Moon or Mars.

Dream on; but dreams don't get you anywhere.  Except nightmares might get you out of bed.

My daughter got pregnant about the time of the last post in this thread.  She's having the baby in a few weeks. 

So what happened to the beginning of the fusion age?

Louis wrote, "YOu can't simply assert that it is impossible to make money from Mars gold."  Well, yes I could, but I didn't. 
"You have to give some reasons."  Which I guessed you missed:

The cost to obtain things on Earth will be far, far less than the cost of sending mining and processing equipment and crews to Mars, mining ores on Mars, processing the ores to obtain the unobtainium, and returning it to Earth. All of the mining and processing will, of course, occur in, what is for humans, essentially vacuum, with radiation hazards, potentially corrosive soil and dust and 38% gravity which will require adaptations from Earth practice.  There will be no water available for processing or transporting the ore, and energy for various purposes must be supplied, which will be a large additional project.

Aside from the fact that, as Johnson points out, we have little idea what's actually there, that is, whether there are any remotely reasonably available sources of gold on Mars. 

On the other hand, if it costs less to go to Mars, dig and process stuff and return to Earth, than to just dig and process on Earth, we really don't need to worry about it.  All the greedy people on Earth, of whom there are a very, very large number, will just hop over to Mars (greed will show them how), scoop up huge quantities of gold and Mars rocks with greed once again solving all problems.  It will be super profitable because the more stuff you bring, the higher the price.  And especially profitable what with everyone on Mars working for free.

If we could just apply those principle to all of our needs on Earth, think of where we would be.  Maybe back to the Golden age of the American deep south with all those useful slaves.  And, if we would just cut the supply of oil, the price will fall; just as the price of Mars rocks will rise as the supply increases.   

Eventually, there'll be enough of Mars on Earth that we won't need to go to Mars to enjoy Mars.  It will be Mars on Earth, and we can disband the Mars Society.

Decimator wrote: "What good is Earth money on Mars, anyway?"

It's good for imports.

For one obvious thing, you have to pay these 3,000 or so people.  I know Lewis feels everyone on Mars will work for free, but my own view is that supporting Mars colonists will be far more expensive than supporting people in Antarctica.  It's not going to work to tell doctors, lawyers, engineers, accountants, plumbers and a host of other necessary professions: "You'll have to work till you drop dead, you'd better be healthy because you're not going to get much in the way of medical care, your kids won't get much of an education or choice of occupation, and neither will you.  Even the video games won't be much."

The Antarctic example may be instructive.  There are currently 29 countries that spend about $500 million per year keeping an average of about 3,000 people on the continent – more in summer than winter.  That’s about $167,000 per person per year.

Transportation costs to Antarctica are trivial compared to transportation costs to Mars, and Antarctica is much more hospitable with readily available air and water requiring essentially no processing.  Temperature control and radiation exposure are not as significant issues as on Mars.  There are no problems about corrosive dust, 38% gravity or other unknowns.

From anywhere in Antarctica in a few hours one can reach New Zealand, Chile or South Africa, a fact which makes inventory control much less critical and eliminates the necessity for full scale medical services, as well as numerous other simplifications.  Also, these facilities have been developed over a period of more than 50 years, so $167,000 per person per year is the cost after more than 50 years of development.

Of course, these guys do actual, valuable scientific research.  But they don’t need to mine anything, process ores, manufacture anything and certainly don’t have to worry about developing an export industry.  Far, far more support would be needed in they wanted to do any of those things.

Josh is proposing $500 per person per year to support a Mars colony.  To me the $167,000 per person per year spent on the Antarctic colonies suggest that Josh’s estimate is about 4 orders of magnitude too low.

About the 3D printer that requires only, “stainless steel, binding agent, and bronze.”

For stainless steel you need iron and chromium.  Which means you need to prospect for and mine the ore for iron and chromium.  The ore for chromium is the mineral chromite (FeCr2O4), which has to be reduced somehow.  On Earth we use an aluminum or silicon reaction yielding chromium and (I think) FeAl2O4.  This all gets rather involved.  I don’t know if the iron can reasonably be extracted from the FeAl2O4, nor, if practical, in which comparable quantities.  In any case, one would also need to obtain aluminum or silicon.

On the Earth iron is generally obtained from iron ores, which would again need to be prospected, mined and processed. 

Bronze is an alloy of copper and tin (more or less).  More prospecting, mining and processing.

Producing a “binding agent” is not likely to be simpler than the above. 

Without plate tectonics on Mars, geologic processes on Earth enabled by the existence of large amounts of liquid water, how likely are these ores to be easily accessible?  I think a fair answer has to be, "Nobody knows.  Yet."

All of this ore and finished product have to be transported all over the place to the 3-D printer. How are the transporters (which may have to travel hundreds of kilometers carrying very heavy loads) to be manufactured?  Probably more prospecting, mining and processing.  What about roads even of the most minimal type?

Most of these processes and projects would require huge amounts of electrical and heat energy, which will have to be built and maintained while scattered over all of the necessary sites, at least dozens.

Then I have a feeling that making additional 3-D printers, or just providing parts for the one, would require more than iron, chromium, aluminum, silicon, copper, tin and a binding agent. 

How many people will it take to do all of this? 

And provide food, potable water and other life support essentials like heat, light and air?  And all of the equipment and energy all of that requires?  Who’s going to make the furniture, cleaning and office supplies, clothing, toothpaste and brushes, cooking, storage, eating and cleaning equipment and utensils, etc., etc.? 

Are the colonists going to do without CAT scans and MRIs?  Dental X rays?  EKGs?  EEGs?  Sonograms?  Defibrillators? And thousands of other types of medical equipment?  Any drugs they don’t make would have to be imported, and that could be a huge variety (thousands?) and an awful lot of volume and complexity. You wouldn’t want to run out of anesthesia, antibiotics and a bunch of other stuff. 

Everything, but especially the imported stuff, would require very accurate inventory forecasting and control.

To be even mostly self-sufficient, I think, would require a rather large colony, at least several thousand people and a huge industrial infrastructure.  Even with super-duper 3-D printers.  Which I have my doubts about, but I'll keep that to myself.

I'm reminded of the mechanical Turk - the supposed chess playing automaton that fooled Europeans and American for nearly a century, even including Benjamin Franklin, Edgar Allen Poe, and Napoleon Bonaparte. 

And, is it not so very convenient that it not only produces no emissions, no radioactivity, but also no radioactive isotopes?  And it's cheap.

There lies the same problem as with Polywell.  These guys been heating some factory for the last two years.  The Polywell guys have been doing stuff for decades.  If the things actually worked, an awful lot of entities would be very, very interested. 

>  Countries with energy security issues like Japan, Israel, Taiwan, Malta and about a hundred others
>  Big exporters of oil and other energy resources like Russia, Saudi Arabia, Iran and about 20 others
>  For nuclear physicists of all types this would be evidence of a completely new and previously unknown type of nuclear reaction challenging our basic understanding of nuclear processes.  They should be all over this.  As others have been known to say, "Fascinating."
>  Big oil, coal and nuclear companies for the same reason as countries who are big exporters of energy
>  Companies that use large amounts of energy could save a lot of money.

Many of these entities have very effective intelligence services.  They should be swarming all over projects like this one, which, if true, could transform the world economy and political situation within a few years.  And the media should follow along. 

But governments, intelligence services, large corporations and the media seem pretty uninterested.  Could they all be that blind and stupid?  My instinct for nonsense is energized.

What kind of radiation is this thing producing?  That should be pretty easy to figure out, and is certainly absolutely essential for the safety of those involved.  What? No neutrons?  No alpha, no beta, no protons, no gamma, no X-rays, no nothing?   Hmmm. 

What was it P.T. said?

The Square Kilometer Array (www.skatelescope.org) will be able to detect Earth-like radio leakage at a distance of several hundred to a few thousand light years. 

Earth has at least two other sources of detectable radio emmissions besides TV:
>  The various missile defense radars that have been deployed and operated since the 1950s, and are continuing to be developed, deployed and operated.
>  The 22 publicly acknowledged deliberate transmissions to nearby stars.

We're not just listening.

Another possibility is that, if bases and especially if colonies, are developed on the Moon, Mars and other places, there will be greatly increased radio transmissions of all kinds between these bodies, between them and numerous spacecraft and satellites, and between the spacecraft and satellites.  For instance, one can be sure that entertainment (live sports, political events, current news, etc.) will be broadcast to various outposts on a 24/7 basis.

Signals already traveling interplanetary distances could well have leakage that could be detected by sophisticated  entities at interstellar distances.

Still another possibility is that, as we become aware of the existence of nearby life bearing planets, some group on Earth will deliberately signal directly to them.

Civilizations have used increasing amounts of energy in total and per capita terms for thousands of years.  It’s easy to see how this trend might continue for quite some time.

Bob