New Mars Forums

The difficulty of Martian greenhouses is not heat but light. Mars is much further out than Earth and daylight is the equivalent of dusk here. There is also the problem of the extremely strong ultra violet radiation which strikes Mars and this will have to be countered by filtering the greenhouse glass/ceramic.

Still we can use mirrors to put more light into the greenhouse and if designed well can block the ultra violet light as well. More solar energy more heat in the greenhouse. We can use the heat to probably power small engines and gain some electricity out of the system and any worry about heat will easily be resolved by a simple heat exchange/radiator system.

Then it comes down to the simple question. Why would we want to go to that expense and effort for what is no practical purpose or gain in understanding.

There is a limit to the height you want a station the higher it is the more fuel you need to get there and the less you can carry to it. Of course there is the point that if you go too high you will end up reaching the van allen radiation belts and then you will need more shielding.

The ISS station is at the right height to avoid other hazards like satelites and the majority of space debris

If it comes down to it the ISS is simply in the wrong orbit for it to be useful as a spaceport for mating various components sent from the Earth. It was originally planned to have this purpose but this was removed from its configuration and even the orbit was shifted so Russian progress and Soyuz vehicles could reach it.

If we have a need for an orbital construction depot then the ISS is not it. It would be cheaper to simply create a new spacestation. This one specialised outpost could be sent up in one or two launches and it would be placed where the US launch sites could reach it easily. It would save money and since it would be a lot simpler to operate as it is nothing like as complicated it will have a much longer life.

Still this assumes that we will need to make something that takes more than one or two launches to construct.

One of the greatest problems is that living under water you are in an enviroment that will give the aquanaut long term medical problems. The first is that there will be no access to sunlight and this is essential for long term health. Sunlight breaks down essential  vitamins so that we can use them. Damp dark conditions are not good for th lungs and lung diseases as well as colds etc are a real problem for people staying in these colonies.

Still there is no need for any underwater colony as long as land above is cheaper and there are no real economic, political or other similar reason to invest millions in building such a colony.

That makes it useless for the future of human exploration you know. Mars is not the ultimate destination you know though an important one there are worlds and asteroids to explore. There has to be a trade off with ease of access and egress to how effective a base operating will be. Currently though Mars has all the advantages for the long term in becoming a branch of Permanent Human civilisation the Moon as an industrial base to support future exploration is winning hands down.

Actually 5kms is not enough room as far as I can see. Both the Moon and Mars will rely on the ability to utilise the surrounding regolith to create breathable air and to provide materials and items needed for any base. 5kms sounds a lot but it can be quickly used in any long term bases.

I dont really think we can get down to specific sizes of land that is considered occupied or being used as it will come down to what operation is currently going on.

Still it will come down to international agreement as the Outer Space treaty has to be either superseeded by another more pertinent treaty. (A difficult proposal as just about every nation will jump on to the bandwagon and most will not be willing to allow the current space powers to get a chance to dominate space) or we can try to change the OST to become more effective (again another difficult proposal but not as hard)

I do agree but that is a capatilistic proposal and unfortunatly in this type of brokerage the likes of Socialist Venezuela have just as much say as the USA.

I honestly dont think that drilling as a process will be too much of a problem on Mars. To counteract the reduced gravity it just means more tie downs for the initial drilling process. Actually with the meteoric bombardment Mars has suffered it may be possible to use a corkscrew device to gain leverage.

The problem on Mars is not drilling but regolith moving. Most dozers and shovel blades rely on gravity and there mass to give them the bite to get into the ground they are moving. On Mars not only will gravity be less so reducing effectiveness but we will not be able to compensate by using heavier dozer or spade bits.

We will just have to get inventive.

The use of a magnetic drive has been postulated for a form of space tug.

The idea is that a craft deploys a magnetic tether that reacts against the magnetic field of the Earth or similar and will be pushed away. So a craft can lift loads up from LEO to GEO orbit or if by changing the polarity able to pull out of orbit a disused satelite.

But the process is slow and though very cheap as space drives go is not one that makes sense for manned missions.

[url=http://www.space.com/businesstechnology/technology/technovel_tether_041109.html]Electrodynamic Tethers: Getting into the Swing
[/url]

An old article but worth reading.

One place that minerals have been found to concentrate is at the sites of what are Hydro thermal vents the so called Black Smokers. (There are also white smokers but they are a lot less mineral rich).

But these vents are abodes of very specialised life and are protected. But these black smokers eventually die and they leave soft rock formations rich in minerals and the plan is these can be mined.

Wired Magazine: Race to the bottom

This will be done by the use of telerobotic robots operating from moored barges or ships.

The outpost may be of light structural weight but the Moon lander will not and it makes sense for a rover to have surveyed the landing site and to have placed beacons to aid the landers. It also makes sense that rovers which can last for long periods and dont need supplies keep surveying and finding sites that we want the more effective human explorers to investigate. And of course there is nothing to stop the rovers having the capability to actually develop the landing site for the humans to come.

We will likely have placed into Orbit around Mars a series of satelits to allow over the horizon communication as well as to provide a Mars Net. This will probabily also have any bases that we have on the Martian Moons as well linked in.

Another option is the development of balloons where we can bounce signals off and to provide a "cheap" alternative to a permanent satelite system.

Any long distance missions will also use the repeater station system of allowing communication between it and the home base to happen.