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#26 Today 09:16:21
- SpaceNut
- Administrator
- From: New Hampshire
- Registered: 2004-07-22
- Posts: 30,023
Re: Dome LED lighting and for crops
If this is done on first mission then we can stay but here is part of what must be done.
Mars has an atmosphere. Greenhouses can be built with Mars soil for plants, and Mars atmosphere. It has to be processed. Carbon monoxide must be removed, or reacted with oxygen to produce CO2. CO2 itself must be reduced, but not eliminated. Greenhouses must have oxygen similar to Earth.
Mars soil must be treated. Perchlorates must be broken down. But scientists have already developed an enzyme to break down perchlorate. If there is perchlorate in soil, it will be take up by plants and be present in food. Perchlorate is toxic. But it breaks down into salt and oxygen. So breaking down takes effort and time, but can be done.
Mars soil has practically no nitrogen. Instruments on Spirit and Opportunity rovers found none. Instruments on Curiosity and Perseverance were more sensitive; they found some, but very little and only in certain locations. Nitrogen will have to be added to soil in greenhouses. That's Ok; there's nitrogen in Mars atmosphere. We know how to process Mars atmosphere to concentrate nitrogen. And we know how to react atmospheric nitrogen with hydrogen to make ammonia. We can react ammonia with more nitrogen to make ammonium-nitrate fertilizer. That's white granules, used as fertilizer for many decades.
Water: at mid-latitudes there are glaciers in the sides of canyons. These have been mapped by Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. There's also a large frozen lake at low altitude just 4° north of the equator. It's the "frozen pack-ice" of v, a formation in a large area known as Elysium Planitia. The European Space Agency has studied it: surface area larger than the Great Lakes, or roughly equal to the North Sea. Volume greater than all the Great Lakes combined, or roughly equal to the North Sea. Not as deep as Lake Superior, but same depth as Lake Erie. Some people at NASA claimed it's lava, not ice. Professional geologists with PhD's at the European Space Agency said this is absolutely NOT lava; it is ice.
Here's an image showing a couple "sploosh" craters.
Robert is also talking about the right size for those that stay as caretakers which is not what others say we can do with out studies of mars gravity effects.
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