Projected Marsian Population?

Hazer · 2004-04-28 00:14:04

Tell me why. Why does the US have a compelling need to start funnelling relief for AIDS sufferers into Africa? If you look at it from a stabilising population growth perspective, AIDS is actually a good thing (I know, that's just sick.)

One of two things is going to happen 1) You find a once-off treatment that negates AIDS (Unlikely, as HIV must run it's course. This has to do with the nature of viral diseases) or

2) You spent a lifetime treating symptoms. Option 1 is the only thing that will work for people who are too poor to afford the lifelong treatments (I doubt the ENTIRE civilized world could afford to provide such treatments, much less the United States.)

3) You come up with an effective and SAFE vaccine-this option is bloody unlikey, and even if you did it would not help those already infected one whit.

The best option however requires a change in peoples' attitudes.
Perhaps one day folks will be a bit more careful about who they sleep with, instead of screwing like dumb bunny rabbits. Even with protection, bodily fluids are exchanged during sexual acts. It isn't education that matters in stopping the global AIDS crises, it is personal choice--namely yours. You want to help stop the crises? Don't bedroom hop.
To act from the top down is impossible, as we have already learned that you cannot make laws about who sleeps with who.

Palomar · 2004-04-28 07:12:37

It really does stymie me that, here in the U.S. at least, weight issues and smoking are harped on and on about, as if being 20 pounds overweight or smoking 1/2 pack of cigarettes a day are the most terrible things imaginable...and yet AIDS and related issues are seemingly swept under the rug ("hush, hush") by comparison.
This is probably because smoking and obesity kill far more people in the US than AIDS does. While AIDS runs rampant in many third world countries, in the US it accounts for much less than 1% of total deaths, and it is not one of the top 15 causes of death. I agree that AIDS is more dangerous than many things that get a lot of media attention (like terrorism), and steps should be taken to prevent it. However, it is important to keep things in perspective and realize that things like cancer and heart disease are still much more important.

*AIDS may account for less than 1% of total deaths...but how many people have it who aren't dead (yet)? And who may still be passing it on? Will Americans wake up when the percentage is 15%? Humans in general seem to have this very unfortunate knack of only waking up and trying to change something when it's just about too late. AIDS may just be the thing we can't back-paddle out of...

You say cancer and heart disease are more important health issues. Doesn't it strike you as odd, though, that while highly sexualized behaviors are splashed all over the popular media 24/7/365 (your local magazine rack is one good example) -- as though absolutely unrestrained sexual behavior is constantly being encouraged (this -isn't- a moral issue with me, by the way; rather, health-related and common sense) -- seldom if ever do you see "use a condom" or "practice safe sex" messages alongside the sexual material. Also, smoking and over-eating have been cracked down on repeatedly; Marlboro billboards have been "out" for a long time now. Look at all the exercise and fitness advertisements, "infomericals" (for exercise machines), etc. etc.

If AIDS isn't a big problem in the U.S. currently, it soon will be, given the trends. Oh well, just keep working out and don't smoke, and everything will be "a-okay"

--Cindy

Ian Flint · 2004-04-28 16:44:26

Tell me why. Why does the US have a compelling need to start funnelling relief for AIDS sufferers into Africa?

Here's one reason. Imagine with me the future...

After a couple of generations of mass AIDS deaths and millions upon millions of AIDS orphans in their part of the world, Africans decide enough is enough. They realize that the wealthy U.S.A. did little to nothing to help them in this crisis. On top of that they remember all the atrocities that America and the rest of the Western World have committed against their ancestors (like slavery, for one). Poor, homeless, parentless, dying of desease and starvation, the Africans have nothing to lose. Sounds like an uprising in the works to me.

Spontaniously the entire continent of Africa erupts in violence. Most white people are killed just because they look like they are from the U.S. or Europe. The highly technological armed forced of the developed nations of the world are no match for the hordes of angry guerrilla fighters invading the lands to the north. These invaders, having lived most of their lives without parents to teach them empathy, are ruthless killers, taking no prisoners exept as slaves. After a few short years, Europe is unrecognizable. It has not only become an occupied land, its previous residents are nowhere to be found -- either dead or homeless as refugees in America. All America could effectively do against the Africans was seal its borders and protect the seas from an invasion force.

The worst thing about this whole war is that we poor Americans won't be able to get our cheap imports anymore! We will spiral into an economic depression of unprecidented proportions.

Dook · 2004-04-28 20:19:36

Sigh...I am so tired of hearing about countries and people around the world who are unhappy with the lack of attention (money) they are getting from the United States. The people of the US give more money and put more time and effort into helping others than any other people. Red Cross and Red Crescent, USAID, World Health Organization, Center for Disease Control, ten thousand church's across the US, Peace Corp, Engineer's and Doctors without borders... I could go on forever but for some reason it would still not be enough.

Take a look at the Red Cross website. There you can see how much money the US, Japan, and the European countries give to EVERYONE else and how little to nothing the rich arab countries give, even to their arab neighbors in need.

You cannot help people who are unwilling, as a people, to help themselves. Third world countries are still third world countries primarily because of govt. corruption and tribal/ethnic war. Until they can live in peace with themselves it will not change.

Hazer · 2004-04-28 21:46:31

And tell me, who are the hypothetical Africans with nothing to lose going to rise up against? We aren't exactly ruling them at this point.
Militarily, they would be crushed.

You know, the ONLY reason that the armed forces of the Western world try to kill as little people as possible is because we think it is generally wrong to kill noncombatants. That's the main reason we have trouble in urban warfare, a general unwillingness to flatten the city.

How are they going to get across oceans without being blown out of the water? The quickest route to Europe, through the straits near Spain's Southern tip, could be effectively sealed in a short time. The other route involves going through the Arab countries, who might object voraciously.

"Help me or else I kill you and destroy Europe" doesn't seem to be a very compelling reason.
AIDS is a tragedy in that the primary transmission vector involves a set of stupid personal choices.

MarsDog · 2004-04-29 01:25:50

Sending only people with AIDS resistant genes to Mars might be a good idea. That gene offered resistance to the Bubonic Plague, and might offer resistance to other diseases as well.

Shaun Barrett · 2004-04-29 07:10:36

Thanks for the info., Cindy. :up:
Some of the apparent paradoxes of HIV/AIDS infection and/or immunity are quite puzzling, aren't they? The 10 year gap which commonly occurs between the detection of HIV in an individual and the onset of full-blown AIDS, for example.
It seems clear that AIDS is still not very well understood and this explains why a vaccine is still so elusive, I suppose.
I know there are still some people who believe the virus was engineered by a covert U.S. intelligence agency and deliberately released into the black African and gay populations in order to achieve some kind of diabolical culling of people deemed 'undesirable'.
There's absolutely no evidence to believe such a wild hypothesis, of course, but, if we imagine for a moment that it really happened that way, it might help to explain why the HIV/AIDS infection is so damned intractable when it comes to a cure. It's almost demonic in its ability to elude the immune system and defy the immunologists battling against it. And, due to its inability to spread by almost any means other than blood or sexual exchange, it would be an ideal instrument of genocide because its imagined inventors could guarantee their own safety by sexually quarantining themselves from the intended target group.
If it weren't a horrible reality, you could imagine it being the fictional creation of someone like Michael Crichton.
Weird.

Palomar · 2004-07-07 11:06:04

Tell me why. Why does the US have a compelling need to start funnelling relief for AIDS sufferers into Africa?
Here's one reason. Imagine with me the future...
After a couple of generations of mass AIDS deaths and millions upon millions of AIDS orphans in their part of the world, Africans decide enough is enough. They realize that the wealthy U.S.A. did little to nothing to help them in this crisis. On top of that they remember all the atrocities that America and the rest of the Western World have committed against their ancestors (like slavery, for one). Poor, homeless, parentless, dying of desease and starvation, the Africans have nothing to lose. Sounds like an uprising in the works to me.
Spontaniously the entire continent of Africa erupts in violence. Most white people are killed just because they look like they are from the U.S. or Europe. The highly technological armed forced of the developed nations of the world are no match for the hordes of angry guerrilla fighters invading the lands to the north. These invaders, having lived most of their lives without parents to teach them empathy, are ruthless killers, taking no prisoners exept as slaves. After a few short years, Europe is unrecognizable. It has not only become an occupied land, its previous residents are nowhere to be found -- either dead or homeless as refugees in America. All America could effectively do against the Africans was seal its borders and protect the seas from an invasion force.
The worst thing about this whole war is that we poor Americans won't be able to get our cheap imports anymore! We will spiral into an economic depression of unprecidented proportions.

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=s … _aids]Read me

*I thought of Ian's post when I read this article.

Yes, we got off-topic in this thread...but I started the thread and I'm disinclined to start a new one.

--Cindy

::edit:: "The life expectancy in Zambia, where about 380 people die daily of AIDS, has dropped to about 35 years from 52 in 1981."

380 people die DAILY

mars2015 · 2005-05-20 07:43:41

Well, although I am an environmentalist, I don't think the Earth really has a set carrying capacity. Malthus thought that Europe would be destroyed by overpopulation. That was over a hundred years ago and it didn't happen.
My basic idea is this: As the population increases people will do two things naturally --
1. People will find better and more efficient ways to produce food, power, etc.
2. People will voluntarily limit their family size if they feel like they are running out of room or resources.
These two things are already happening in industrialized nations. The problem is when people aren't educated enough to control family size or if they are too beaten down and hungry to innovate.
Another problem is when rich, educated societies (like the U.S.) waste resources. For example: instead of helping to control AIDS in Africa, America had to start a war with IRAQ. The government also pays some farmers not to produce to keep prices up/stable instead of just destributing our surplus to famine stricken parts of the world.
The "carrying capacity" of a planet will increase and keep pace with the population of that planet if the people are educated and unselfish.
Mars right now has a carrying capacity of zero, yet we are already talking about millions and billions of people living happily on that planet. People create the carrying capacity of their planet.
I wouldn't be surprised if the Earth turned into a perfectly sustainable Courosant (spelling?) city planet supporting hundreds of billions of people.

I knew it would only be a few days on this forum before I saw an America-basher come along.

Cobra Commander · 2005-05-20 09:24:41

I knew it would only be a few days on this forum before I saw an America-basher come along.

America can take the bashing. We're the greatest country on Earth, after all.

And since the thread's been ressurected and I've stepped into it, a few more thoughts:

I wouldn't be surprised if the Earth turned into a perfectly sustainable Courosant (spelling?) city planet supporting hundreds of billions of people.

Possible, but illustrative of how our own perceptions affect this speculation far more than any real-world issues. Ian mentions this example of a planet-wide city supporting hundreds of billions. Earlier I laid out a possibility involving small groups or individuals living on vast "plantations", leaving planetary populations much lower. Either is equally viable and both depend largely on the same technological advances that we're on the edge of achieving. The difference is really one of mindset, one of direction.

The "mega-city" approach is one looking inward, the "plantation" approach looks outward in a species growth sense. Do we focus on finding ever more efficient methods of sustaining people or do we focus on acquiring more and more land to sustain the growing population. The old "find more vs. conservation" argument.

But conservation is never a solution, just a delaying tactic. Further, 20 billion people scattered across three planets is more survivable than 100 billion on one. 50 billion on twenty planets/moons virtually guarantees human civilization will endure in some form.

Population density on a frontier is partly dependent on the speed at which new frontiers are opened. More available space will result in a greater spread of the population.

Of course this tells us next to nothing since the outcome will depend heavily on the mindset of the people running the effort. I'm hoping our descendents will spread themselves thinly across the widest expanse they can reach. Millions to Mars, fine. But hopefully a few will continue on, dropping off the squeamish at Titan on their way to Alpha Centauri.

We need breathing room.

Stormrage · 2005-06-25 15:01:32

This may offend some of you but this is true. I'm a immigrant to United Kingdom. I came here has a child so i am utterly western. My mum isn't though. When i speak to her i notice one thing about them. They are STUPID (sorry if that offends you).

1: While we in Europe are suffering from a fertility crises (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/4112450.stm]BBC infertility time Bomb) the undeveloped countries are happily having multiple children they can not afford to raise.

2: There is an Aid crisis in there country YET they still have sex with people who have Aids without protection. That is stupid you shouldn't even have sex with anyone who has aids with a condom.

Aids could blow away in 30 years. All we have to do is make sure that the infected people don't spread it. When they die the disease dies with them. Alternativity you can help find a cure for it by running a seti like program. http://fightaidsathome.scripps.edu/]FightAids@Home

We shouldn't use huge amount of money on Poor countries beacuse most of them can help them self if it wasn't for corruption in their government. Did you know for Every pound given to the tsunami funds only a penny was spent by the governments to help the poor people who suffered?
The rest ended up in the pockets of the rich.

Money wasted. If people wanted to help themselves and had the true desire then they would do have been able to do so just like Japan.

Trebuchet · 2005-06-25 16:23:57

Correct. As much as I feel for people in various severely screwed up places in the world, I can't quite shake the feeling that not much ever changes. You only get new flavors of Megalomaniac of the Month and more misery. In darker moments of depression, I sometimes feel that we should build a big wall, literally or figuratively, and let Darwin solve our problems, primarily because of the following unpleasant logic.

1) If you send money, medicine, or food, it gets stolen and sidetracked.
2) If you send money, medicine, or food, and aid workers to prevent it from getting sidetracked, they let the aid workers distribute it... then take it away later.
3) If you send some soldiers too, then you have a war on your hands, and you will always have a sizeable chunk of the population who reflexively fight 'the invaders', even though said invaders are hellbent on helping them despite themselves.
4) If you kill Dictator-of-the-Month, other countries will throw a shit fit and generally be pains in the ass and generally obstruct any further humanitarian crises.

Stormrage · 2005-06-25 16:35:17

Correct. As much as I feel for people in various severely screwed up places in the world, I can't quite shake the feeling that not much ever changes. You only get new flavors of Megalomaniac of the Month and more misery. In darker moments of depression, I sometimes feel that we should build a big wall, literally or figuratively, and let Darwin solve our problems, primarily because of the following unpleasant logic.
1) If you send money, medicine, or food, it gets stolen and sidetracked.
2) If you send money, medicine, or food, and aid workers to prevent it from getting sidetracked, they let the aid workers distribute it... then take it away later.
3) If you send some soldiers too, then you have a war on your hands, and you will always have a sizeable chunk of the population who reflexively fight 'the invaders', even though said invaders are hellbent on helping them despite themselves.
4) If you kill Dictator-of-the-Month, other countries will throw a shit fit and generally be pains in the ass and generally obstruct any further humanitarian crises.

Correct
Correct
Correct
And Correct (i guess you ment Iraq. Its the terrorists that are making the fuss not the people).

Idiocy is something that will never be bred out of Humans.

1 Person = On average can be smart
A Group = Are plain stupid. Don't even try to reason. One simple thing can turn them into a mob.

SpaceBull · 2005-09-26 13:52:02

Projecting the future population of Mars is an interesting exercise.

I believe it all comes down to how much energy you can produce, and that there is almost no limit on the land itself.

Converting energy to food is not really that hard, and is already taking place in many rich countries. Growing tomatoes in Northern Scandinavia during the Winter when it is pitch black outside and the temperature is around -35C is not a problem at all long as you have a cheap reliable source of energy. The same applies to desalination of sea water for agriculture which is a big industry in some of the small countries around the Arabian gulf. Growing food on Mars would require energy for both heating plants and extracting water, but can support a population of at least 20 billion if we find a cheap and reliable source of energy.

Putting in place restrictions on population growth would just be ridiculous, because human creativity always finds new ways of feeding more mouths.

Human settlements of Mars will already have adapted to the Martian environment, and might therefore object to the whole idea of terraforming because that will put big areas of their environment under water.

Martian Republic · 2005-10-08 09:01:15

Projecting the future population of Mars is an interesting exercise.
I believe it all comes down to how much energy you can produce, and that there is almost no limit on the land itself.
Converting energy to food is not really that hard, and is already taking place in many rich countries. Growing tomatoes in Northern Scandinavia during the Winter when it is pitch black outside and the temperature is around -35C is not a problem at all long as you have a cheap reliable source of energy. The same applies to desalination of sea water for agriculture which is a big industry in some of the small countries around the Arabian gulf. Growing food on Mars would require energy for both heating plants and extracting water, but can support a population of at least 20 billion if we find a cheap and reliable source of energy.
Putting in place restrictions on population growth would just be ridiculous, because human creativity always finds new ways of feeding more mouths.
Human settlements of Mars will already have adapted to the Martian environment, and might therefore object to the whole idea of terraforming because that will put big areas of their environment under water.

The planet Earth or Mars will reach a physical limit as to how many people could or should live on Earth or Mars. But, you right that a lot of how many people can live or should live on Earth or Mars is dependent on what level of technology that we have developed. An example of this is man not making any improvement on the planet and the planet would be only able to support 20 to 30 million of humans on planet earth. But, if we implement new technology build the earth up, it could probably be able to support 20 to 30 billion conformably without over taxing or polluting the earth. But, I remind you there still is physical population load limit that we should not go past and should we should be looking for other places to expand our to like Mars, but it has it physical population load limit too.

I figure around one billion people on Mars as talking point or target to hit. If you have too few people on Mars, there going to have trouble maintaining an Earth type planet on Mars, because it going to be very labor intensive to maintain. Too many people on Mars and we will go over our logical population physical limits. But, anybody that thinks that we are going to have an Earth type planet with several million people on Mars, is just plain dreaming, because that not going to happen. We are going to have to have a large enough population with the infrastructure in place to manhandle that planet to make into an earth type planet and maintain it as an earth type planet and that takes a of man power to do that.

Larry,

SpaceBull · 2005-10-09 08:16:19

The planet Earth or Mars will reach a physical limit as to how many people could or should live on Earth or Mars. But, you right that a lot of how many people can live or should live on Earth or Mars is dependent on what level of technology that we have developed. An example of this is man not making any improvement on the planet and the planet would be only able to support 20 to 30 million of humans on planet earth. But, if we implement new technology build the earth up, it could probably be able to support 20 to 30 billion conformably without over taxing or polluting the earth. But, I remind you there still is physical population load limit that we should not go past and should we should be looking for other places to expand our to like Mars, but it has it physical population load limit too.
I figure around one billion people on Mars as talking point or target to hit. If you have too few people on Mars, there going to have trouble maintaining an Earth type planet on Mars, because it going to be very labor intensive to maintain. Too many people on Mars and we will go over our logical population physical limits. But, anybody that thinks that we are going to have an Earth type planet with several million people on Mars, is just plain dreaming, because that not going to happen. We are going to have to have a large enough population with the infrastructure in place to manhandle that planet to make into an earth type planet and maintain it as an earth type planet and that takes a of man power to do that.
Larry,

I think we could actually end up with more people on Mars than on Earth, because big parts of the terrestrial ecosystem may end up being protected from human intervention a bit like the national parks of our time. The cradle of our civilization and the habitat of all our biodiversity will be considered extremely valuable, maybe even "holy", while there will not be anything stopping people from turning the empty deserts of Mars, the Moon and other similar places into continuous cities.

The densest parts of Hong Kong have a density of 200.000 people per square kilometer, and a similar density should be even easier to obtain in a low gravity environment. The surface area of Mars is 144,100,000 km2, and we could therefore theoretically fit 29 trillion people on its surface. That is 4400 times the current world population.

However, I believe my original figure of 20 billion is more realistic in the long term, but I have always imagined that the long term future of Mars would be more like a continuous city than another green planet. Still, the areas where people live will be extremely dense because this will make it cheaper to build domes over their heads. If cities are built dense enough, then the whole idea of terraforming may become completely irrelevant.

All of this is anyways far into the future, and I will be happy if I get to see just a few people living on Mars and the Moon in my lifetime.

noosfractal · 2005-10-09 13:50:53

If you have too few people on Mars, there going to have trouble maintaining an Earth type planet on Mars, because it going to be very labor intensive to maintain.

I think each Martian will have an army of rovots to do their bidding.

MarsDog · 2005-11-13 17:55:23

Low available energy will limit population. You could build a kilometer high tall building covering all of Mars. But the power would have to come from space.

http://www.space.com/businesstechnology … 00908.html

Grypd · 2005-11-13 18:00:07

Low available energy will limit population. You could build a kilometer high tall building covering all of Mars. But the power would have to come from space.
http://www.space.com/businesstechnology … 00908.html

I agree in that Mars is energy poor and that is the essential thing for all modern industry and techniques the use of cheap and plentiful energy. With your life hanging on the balance of energy being used to keep you alive then yes Mars has a problem. Not enough air pressure to operate Wind power, Nuclear too complicated, Fusion not in existence and needing special fuels, And solar being as Mars is far out not enough to supply the needs.

Going to have to be creative to sort this problem out. I wonder if we can use geothermal.

MarsDog · 2005-11-13 18:47:19

Going to have to be creative to sort this problem out. I wonder if we can use geothermal.

Geothermal needs large radiators. Unknown what the internal temperature of Mars is.
If the core is radioactive, then could be endless, But with a lot of digging ?

Geothermal use is increasing
http://www.geos.iitb.ac.in/geothermalin … geoweb.htm

But only 0.075 Watts/meter2
http://geophysics.ou.edu/geomechanics/n … t_flow.htm
"When we compute the total amount of energy generated by 232Th, 238U, and 40K, we find that the total, global, energy production is 3.8x10^13 Watts, or 38,000,000,000,000 Watts, or 38 trillion Watts!
For comparison purposes, in the United States, our energy consumption averages about 3.0x10^11 (300 billion or 0.3 trillion) Watts."

Even at highly efficient conversion to electricity.
Geothermal will not support a large population.

karov · 2005-11-14 14:04:24

The answer is Solar and later predominantly Gravitational.

Solar cause you need only several grams per acre in order to concentrate light using planar fresnel lenses or zonal plates.

Gravitational cause it is the most abundant and clear form... Remember www.paulbirch.net , see - "orbital rings...III". He figures there that if we deorbit the Moon gradually using ORS ( orbital rings systems ) to deliver from the lunar orbit to the earths surface 6 000 000 000 tonnes of matter annually ( of which 1 000 000 000 tonnes already processed steel, aluminium, titanium...) we`ll satisfy all our energy needs and metal demand for 10exp10 years...

Why moon? Why not asteroids? All the goods including the food could be produced in space and delivered on planetary surfaces TOGETHER with the necessary energy...

Grypd · 2005-11-14 18:16:25

The answer is Solar and later predominantly Gravitational.
Solar cause you need only several grams per acre in order to concentrate light using planar fresnel lenses or zonal plates.
Gravitational cause it is the most abundant and clear form... Remember www.paulbirch.net , see - "orbital rings...III". He figures there that if we deorbit the Moon gradually using ORS ( orbital rings systems ) to deliver from the lunar orbit to the earths surface 6 000 000 000 tonnes of matter annually ( of which 1 000 000 000 tonnes already processed steel, aluminium, titanium...) we`ll satisfy all our energy needs and metal demand for 10exp10 years...
Why moon? Why not asteroids? All the goods including the food could be produced in space and delivered on planetary surfaces TOGETHER with the necessary energy...

The problem with Solar is that at the moment the efficiency we get from the solar panels we can easily make on Mars is poor, especially with an efficiency quotient of only about 10 to 20% also due to the distance that Mars is from Earth we get a problem that Mars just does not recieve much solar energy. Actually plans to terraform mars always start with how do we increase the sunlight Mars gets. Not to mention Solar does not work in the cold nights and of course is also heavily interfered with by dust storms.

Gravitational really just when is this miracle power source due to appear, we cannot even do fusion yet so dont expect what we can do in 1000 years to be able to help us now.

MarsDog · 2005-11-14 18:57:44

Starved for power. Not easy to resolve.

Could make equivalent geothermal storage for dust storm survival by warming up a large insulated body of water. The temperature during dust storms drops to -135 °C, so reasonable generating efficiency, even if operating from feezing point of water.

======================================

Starved for CO2. Water ice, not CO2 ice predominates poles.
Most of the CO2 likely swept away by solar wind.
Remainder CO2 ice can only add less than 1 mB.

======================================

Minimalist, just survival,
Greatest luxury will be a large greenhouse with a warm pond in the middle.

SpaceBull · 2005-11-15 17:49:25

Low available energy will limit population. You could build a kilometer high tall building covering all of Mars. But the power would have to come from space.
http://www.space.com/businesstechnology … 00908.html

Nuclear energy can be cheap, clean and efficient. The technology is not really that complicated either - I could easily build a small reactor in my living room if someone provided me with the right kind of uranium. I am sure that Mars, like Earth, has many sources of suitable radioactive isotopes. Fusion energy has a great potential, but if it doesn't work then normal fission is a good and proven alternative. In the long term it may be possible to transport energy between different locations in our solar system in the form of anti-matter. This anti-matter could for instance be produced on Mercury.

Grypd · 2005-11-15 18:02:27

Low available energy will limit population. You could build a kilometer high tall building covering all of Mars. But the power would have to come from space.
http://www.space.com/businesstechnology … 00908.html
Nuclear energy can be cheap, clean and efficient. The technology is not really that complicated either - I could easily build a small reactor in my living room if someone provided me with the right kind of uranium. I am sure that Mars, like Earth, has many sources of suitable radioactive isotopes. Fusion energy has a great potential, but if it doesn't work then normal fission is a good and proven alternative. In the long term it may be possible to transport energy between different locations in our solar system in the form of anti-matter. This anti-matter could for instance be produced on Mercury.

We do not know if we can get radioactives on Mars but we can assume that it is likely that they do exist. We also have to find radioactives that we can use, Uranium derivatives have been found on the Moon so hopefully we can find the equivalent of KrEEP on Mars. Nuclear is cheap as long as we have fuel. The problems come when it comes down to getting rid of the now hazardous nuclear waste and this includes the now contaminated reactor. This is a long term problem especially when we have to find a place geologically safe and with terraforming happening safe for the long term changes we make.

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Re: Projected Marsian Population?

#49 2005-11-15 17:49:25

Re: Projected Marsian Population?

#50 2005-11-15 18:02:27

Re: Projected Marsian Population?

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